Commonwealth v. King’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 5 district · 21 state decisions

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.

1. “Apart from the defendant’s theory that this was a case of domestic violence, the record indicates that Smith had instigated a neighborhood brawl. It was Smith who, on the day of the murder assaulted his former wife. During the day, Smith had terrorized and harassed the neighbors. In the evening he returned with ‘Red’ Phillips and drove through the area shouting obscenities. After 11:00 P.M., Smith and one of his neighbors got into a loud argument. One neighbor arrived at Smith’s car with a baseball bat. Other neighbors and the defendant rushed the car. The first shots were fired. The shots were wild and ‘look[ed] like the consequences of an untoward, foolish introduction of a dangerous weapon in a fight not otherwise at a lethal pitch ..., but if malice is suggested, it is not the deliberated or purposeful malice of an assassin.’ The overwhelming evidence is that Smith, not the defendant, was intent on provoking an incident.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 152 F. Supp. 2d 67 - Lattimore v. Dubois