Commonwealth v. Pezzano’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently April 2019
12 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 Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · Opinions of the Justices to the House of Representatives · Commonwealth v. Hodge · Commonwealth v. Bookman · Lebowitch v. Commonwealth
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This principle is based “upon the fundamental conception that proceedings before the grand jury must be in secret.” This rule of secrecy imposed on the hearings and deliberations of the grand jury derives from two significant considerations. The first is a decision to “save individuals from notoriety unless proba ble cause is found against them and an indictment is returned and disclosed.” The second, of special significance to the matter before us, is to shield grand jury proceedings from any outside influences having the potential to “distort their investigatory or accusatory functions.” Such protection embraces jurors and witnesses alike, and is designed primarily to prevent attempts to overawe them by, among other things, the presence of numbers of prosecution witnesses while evidence is being taken.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Dwire v. State“our reading of the transcript of the hearing on the motion indicates that there was in fact a risk of intimidation inherent in [the police officer's] presence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“presented himself at the first criminal session ... in order to be appointed to provide security while [the witnesses] were testifying.”
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.