346 Pa. Super. 498 - Commonwealth v. Babbs’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently May 2021
18 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Commonwealth v. Wright · Commonwealth v. Coyle · Commonwealth v. Stoyko · Commonwealth v. Hickman · Commonwealth v. Whack
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The rule of law in this Commonwealth is that “[w]hen a person commits a crime, knows that he is wanted therefor, and flees or conceals himself, such conduct is evidence of consciousness of guilt, and may form the basis in connection with other proof from which guilt may be inferred.” Commonwealth v. Coyle, 415 Pa. 379, 393 , 203 A.2d 782, 789 (1964). Accord: Commonwealth v. Whack, 482 Pa. 137, 142-143 , 393 A.2d 417, 419-42 (1 (1978); Commonwealth v. Tinsley, 465 Pa. 329, 333 , 350 A.2d 791, 792-793 (1976). This rule has not heretofore been expanded to permit an inference of guilt merely because a defendant has failed to appear for trial. A failure to appear on the day set for trial does not have the same connotation as pre-arrest flight or concealment and cannot be said to point unerringly to consciousness of guilt.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.