383 Pa. Super. 208 - Commonwealth v. Gains’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
31 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably 416 Pa. Super. 329 - Commonwealth v. Scarfo (1992), 421 Pa. Super. 270 - Commonwealth v. Rightley (1992)
31 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 Gori v. United States · Commonwealth v. Bolden · Commonwealth v. Brady · Commonwealth v. Haefner · Fain v. Duff
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A frivolous claim is a claim clearly and palpably without merit; it is a claim which presents no debatable question. Such futile claims, presumably interposed for the mere purposes of delay or disruption, are to be expressly identified by the trial court through a written finding. The defendant may then opt to request a stay from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to preliminarily challenge the trial court’s written finding of frivolousness and may secure appellate review of the double jeopardy claim on direct review following retrial.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The focus of our Supreme Court in Brady , and our focus presently, is not upon the presence of the written word “frivolous” in a trial court’s opinion or order. The focus is upon an express determination on the part of the trial court that a double jeopardy claim is frivolous, meaning clearly and obviously without merit.”
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.