Commonwealth v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 41 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently July 2017 · most notably Commonwealth v. Casale (1980), Commonwealth v. Wilson (1980)
3 federal appellate · 2 district · 41 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 Bates v. State Bar · Romano v. United States · Commonwealth v. Flynn · Commonwealth v. Barnett · Commonwealth v. Sacco
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In a capital case ... the entry in the supreme judicial court shall transfer to that court the whole case for its consideration of the law and the evidence. Upon such consideration the court may, if satisfied that the verdict was against the law or the weight of the evidence, or because of newly discovered evidence, or for any other reason that justice may require (a) order a new trial or (b) direct the entry of a verdict of a lesser degree of guilt, and remand the case to the superior court for the imposition of sentence.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“of photographs reviewed by a witness who selected and identified the defendant's photograph. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the argument that the State was obligated to preserve and produce the photographs at trial so the jury could assess whether the identification procedure had been so suggestive as to affect its evidentiary weight. [W]e hold that the judge was correct in allowing in evidence the photographic identification without requiring the accompanying introduction of the”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[W]e hold that the judge was correct in allowing in evidence the photographic identification without requiring the accompanying introduction of the "two thick books" of photographs [the witness] had examined. The impracticability of requiring the segregation and production at trial of volumes of photographs shown to witnesses in the course of police investigation greatly outweighs any possible evidentiary value which an examination of such photographs might afford. [ Id. at 117.]”
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.