Commonwealth v. Kline’s Empirical Analysis
1949
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 2 district · 52 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 65 later decisions — most recently July 1990 · most notably Commonwealth v. Wable (1955), United States v. Stirone (1958)
9 federal appellate · 2 district · 52 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 John Haddock v. Harriet Haddock · Commonwealth v. Petrillo · State v. Cupit · Commonwealth v. Winter · Commonwealth v. Edwards
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 65 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is an established principle in criminal procedure that proof of the commission of another crime cannot be put in evidence as a proof of the commission of the crime charged, unless there is such connection between them as to give the fact of the commission of the other crime probative value on the issue of the defendant’s guilt of the crime charged. Henry’s Pennsylvania Trial Evidence, Third Edition, Section 30, pages [48 and] 49, says it is ‘a fundamental principle that a prisoner shall not be required to answer for the commission of an offense that is not specially charged against him in the indictment. But if criminal conduct proposed to be proved forms in any way a link in a chain of circumstances which connects the defendant with the crime charged, it is admissible. In such case, in order that one act may be evidence of another, there must be some connection between them which may be traced in a general design, purpose or plan of the person doing the act, or which may be shown by such circumstances as necessarily tend to establish that the person who committed one act must have been guilty of the other. * * * If facts offered to be proved bear on the offense charged and tend to prove a fact in issue * * * such proofs are admissible even though they incidentally tend to prove the commission of another offense.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The word `design' implies a plan formed in the mind. That an individual who commits or attempts to commit abnormal sex offences is likely to have such a mental `plan' finds recognition in the fact that when a defendant is charged with the commission of a sexual offence the law is more liberal in admitting as proof of his guilt evidence of similar sexual offences committed by him than it is in admitting evidence of similar offences when a defendant is charged with the commission of non-sexual crimes. . . . [I]f A is being tried for the rape or attempted rape of Y the fact that recently he raped or attempted to rape X is admissible in evidence because it tends to prove that he possessed such an abnormal mental or moral nature as would likely lead him to commit the offence charged.”
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.