Commonwealth v. Franklin’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 92 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 98 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably Commonwealth v. Bohannon (1978), Corsetti v. Stone Co. (1985)
6 federal appellate · 92 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 Davis v. Alaska · Chambers v. Mississippi · Douglas v. Alabama · Davis v. Boston Elevated Railway Co. · Commonwealth v. Domanski
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 98 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““* * * In so far as the record discloses, every factor which made it possible for the victims to identify one of the two criminals, or to be mistaken as to the identity of one, applied equally to the other criminal. Therefore, those factors which caused the victims mistakenly to identify one participant would be relevant in assessing the reliability of the identification of the defendant. We emphasize the significant fact that the mistaken identification had been made under oath. * * * * * “In this context, it seems that a showing that the two principal Commonwealth witnesses had mistakenly identified a second man as the other assailant whom they had seen under identical circumstances as the defendant might well have been substantially helpful to the defendant’s case.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““An inference which is unfairly urged or drawn may be decisive in the case. The failure to produce a witness may not necessarily be inconsistent with innocence of the defendant. A witness may be withheld because of his prior criminal record, or because he is susceptible to cross-examination on collateral issues, or for other tactical reasons. For the same reasons it may be tactically unwise for the defendant to offer explanation to the jury of the reasons for his failure to produce the witness .... All of these considerations may assume added importance where the comment of the prosecutor in argument is followed by a charge by the judge which permits the inference . . . .””
1 later decision 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.