Commonwealth v. Ferguson’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 32 later decisions — most recently June 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. Tavares (1982), Commonwealth v. Matchett (1982)
32 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. Rhoades · Commonwealth v. Balthazar · Commonwealth v. Sefranka · Commonwealth v. Croft · Commonwealth v. Wardell
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 32 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““whether the defendant intended public exposure or recklessly disregarded a substantial risk of exposure to one or more persons. . . . Conduct is not established as public merely because another person actually observes the conduct. . . . The Commonwealth must prove that the likelihood of being observed by casual passersby must have been reasonably foreseeable to the defendant, or stated otherwise, that the defendant acted upon an unreasonable expectation that his conduct would remain secret.” (Citations omitted.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““A place may be public at some times and under some circumstances, and not public at others [citations omitted]. The essential query is whether the defendant intended public exposure or recklessly disregarded a substantial risk of exposure to one or more persons .... The Commonwealth must prove . . . that the defendant acted upon an unreasonable expectation that his conduct would remain secret.” 5”
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.