388 Pa. Super. 484 - Commonwealth v. Hart’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably State v. Sawyer (1993), Commonwealth v. Bryant (2004)
35 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 Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Weintraub · Babich v. United States · Garber v. United States · United States v. Peltier · Commonwealth v. Frey
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““While the jury must serve as the sole finder of fact, the trial court has a duty to frame legal issues for the jury and instruct the jury on the applicable law.... One method by which the court may choose to clarify issues for the jury is to direct the jury to consider at the outset the most serious form of the offense with which the defendant has been charged_ By directing the jury to begin its deliberations with the greater offense, the judge can help to ensure that the jury will bring its independent judgment to bear on all important aspects of the Commonwealth’s case.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“We caution that a trial judge should carefully instruct the jury regarding factors that may be capable of rebutting an inference of malice. Whenever the trial judge gives a progression charge in a homicide case, he should accompany the charge with an instruction that they must take any evidence of ‘heat of passion’ or ‘unreasonable belief into account when initially determining whether the Commonwealth has established the malice element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Without proper instructions regarding malice, the jury might misinterpret the progression charge as mandating a conviction for murder despite the presence of mitigating evidence establishing ‘heat of passion’ or ‘unreasonable belief.’”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Malice refers to various culpable mental states; it encompasses the intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, as well as wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, and reckless disregard for social duty.”
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.