Commonwealth v. Bolish’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 federal appellate · 154 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 176 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Courts have a duty, especially in these days when crime has become so prevalent, to see that the lives, the property and the rights of law-abiding people are protected and consequently must delicately balance the scales of justice so that the rights of the public are protected equally with those of persons accused of crime. An arsonist is bound to know the perils and natural results of a fire which are reasonably foreseeable according to the common experience of mankind, and in particular to know that an occupant of the building set on fire, an accomplice, a fireman and the public who are likely to come to watch the fire, may die in or as a natural proximate result of the fire. The attempt of an officer or person to put out the fire, or to rescue people or property therein, or the attempt of any person to escape from the burning building does not constitute in legal contemplation a superseding cause which is sufficient to relieve the arsonist from murder in the first degree. In reason, logic and principle we can see no valid distinction between those cases and a case where an accomplice is killed while setting fire to a house (or building) or attempting to escape therefrom, — the latter's death is just as readily foreseeable as is the death of an owner who attempts to escape or to rescue lives or property from the building. In the interest and for the protection of society a knave who procures another to perpetrate an unlawful act which is dangerous to human life must be hel”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Williams · Commonwealth v. Thomas

2. ““The justification of this rule is to be sought in the age-long experience of mankind that ordinarily an innocent person will spontaneously repel false accusations against him, and that a failure to do so is therefore some indication of guilt. Of course, it is far from conclusive; it is analogous to the rule which permits evidence of the flight of the accused, his demeanor and conduct when charged with crime or taken into custody, and other acts and circumstances indicating his reaction to the situation in which he is involved. The accusatory statement, being hearsay, is not admissible as evidence in itself of the facts which it asserts, but merely to show what the charges were to which defendant offered no denial; its probative force is derived not from the credibility of the accuser, but from the silence of the accused in response to it.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 408 Pa. Super. 518 - Commonwealth v. O'Kicki · 203 F. Supp. 316 - Mackensworth v. Mathiasen's Tanker Industries, Inc.

3. “. . . Proof by eye witnesses or direct evidence of the corpus delicti or of identity or of the commission by the defendant of the crime charged is not necessary. `. . . It is clearly settled that a man may be convicted on circumstantial evidence alone, and a criminal intent may be inferred by the jury from facts and circumstances which are of such a nature as to prove defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: Commonwealth v. Kloiber, 378 Pa. 412 , 106 A. 2d 820 ; Commonwealth v. Homeyer, 373 Pa. 150 , 94 A. 2d 743 ; Commonwealth v. Lowry, 374 Pa. 594, 600 , 98 A. 2d 733 ; Commonwealth v. Danz, 211 Pa. 507 , 60 A. 1070 ; Commonwealth v. Wentzel, 360 Pa. 137 , 61 A. 2d 309 ': Commonwealth ex rel. Garrison v. Burke, 378 Pa. 344, 348 , 106 A. 2d 587 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Sauders · Commonwealth v. Kravitz