Commonwealth v. Dennis’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently August 2015
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 Broadrick v. Oklahoma · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Procunier v. Martinez · United States v. Harriss · Shelton v. Tucker
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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Although from what we have said it is apparent that the defendant's exception to the denial of his motion to dismiss the complaint must be sustained, we believe it appropriate to indicate that there are significant First Amendment problems with any statute which requires the author of a publication to reveal his identity. In Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 , 80 S.Ct. 536 , 4 L.Ed.2d 559 (1960), the Supreme Court struck down an ordinance prohibiting the distribution of any handbill not containing the name and address of the person who printed, wrote, compiled or manufactured it and the person who caused it to be distributed. The court said that `[t]here can be no doubt that such an identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression.' Id. at 64 , 80 S.Ct. at 538 . The court noted the historical importance and constructive effect of certain anonymous writings and concluded that the government did not have the right to compel disclosure in the circumstances before it. `[I]dentification and fear of reprisal might deter perfectly peaceful discussions of public matters of importance.' Id. at 65 , 80 S.Ct. at 539 . . . . . . It seems clear that any public interest in revealing the source of a communication so that the recipient may assess its content in light of that source does not furnish a constitutionally sufficient justification for a prohibition of all anonymous campaign literature."”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Fulton“"Thus, even if the State properly could compel disclosure of the source of all such literature, § 41 restricts free expression by nonvoters. In this respect § 41 is unconstitutionally overbroad."”
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.