Commonwealth v. Mathews’s Empirical Analysis
1947
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently October 2010 · most notably Leahey v. Farrell (1949), Commonwealth Ex Rel. Stevens v. Myers (1965)
5 federal appellate · 24 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. Harris
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Since the Act of April 22, 1903, P.L. 245, 19 P.S. § 861 there is no justification for invoking the writ of error coram nobis in any case in which a defendant is convicted of murder in the first degree. See footnote 7, at page 342, of our opinion in 351 Pa., at page 697 of 41 A.2d, in the Harris case, supra. Section 1 of the Act of 1903 provides that: `Whenever by petition, supported by after discovered evidence, it shall be made to appear to the supreme court that there is ground for substantial doubt as to the guilt of any prisoner convicted of murder of the first degree, the said court shall have power to authorize the court of oyer and terminer in which such prisoner has been convicted to grant a rule for new trial, nunc pro tunc, notwithstanding the expiration of term in which such prisoner was convicted and sentenced; and thereupon the said court of oyer and terminer may, in its discretion, grant and proceed to hear such rule, as in other cases.' The petition now before us for a writ of error coram nobis presents no case either for the writ asked for or for the exercise of the authority given this court by the Act of 1903.”
2 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.