Commonwealth v. Donough’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 116 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 124 later decisions — most recently June 2016 · most notably Commonwealth v. Kloiber (1954), Commonwealth v. Young (1974)
2 federal appellate · 116 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 Commonwealth v. Trefethen · Commonwealth v. New · Commonwealth v. Colandro · Commonwealth v. Homeyer · Commonwealth v. Almeida
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 124 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The defendant comes before you presumed to be innocent and the burden is upon the Commonwealth to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A reasonable doubt cannot be a doubt fancied or conjured up in the minds of the jury to escape an unpleasant verdict; it must be an honest doubt arising out of the evidence itself, the kind of a doubt that would restrain a reasonable man (or woman) from acting in a matter of importance to himself (or herself).”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he defendant [Appellant] ... is presumed to be an innocent man ____ The presumption of innocence remains with him until and unless you are convinced of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ... [T]he burden of proof is placed upon the Commonwealth to prove each and every essential element of the crime charged, beyond a reasonable doubt____ A reasonable doubt is an honest and genuine doubt arising solely from the evidence or the lack of evidence and nothing else. ____ It is such a doubt as would cause a reasonable person to hesitate and restrain from acting in a matter of importance in his or her life. Now, reasonable doubt is not a doubt ... which you conjure up in your own mind to avoid the performance of what might be an unpleasant duty____”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““Now although the Commonwealth has this heavy burden of proving that the defendant is guilty, this does not mean that the Commonwealth must prove its case beyond all doubt and to a mathematical certainty or must the Commonwealth demonstrate the complete impossibility of innocence. A reasonable doubt is one that would arise and cause a reasonably careful and sensitive person such as yourself to hesitate before acting upon a matter of importance in your own affairs.””
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.