Commonwealth v. Germain’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
2 district · 44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently April 2019 · most notably Commonwealth v. Connolly (2009), Commonwealth v. Alvarez (1996)
2 district · 44 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 Aguilar v. Texas · Brinegar v. United States · Spinelli v. United States · United States v. Ventresca · Draper v. United States
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 46 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The defendant moved for a required finding of not guilty and the judge denied the motion. The defendant argues the circumstantial evidence was insufficient to support a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant contends that the evidence linking him with the robbery is too tenuous, since there is no identification of the robber, and too speculative, because others had access to the apartment where the items from the robbery were found. 8 “It is not necessary to prove that no one other than the accused could have done the act.... That another might have had the opportunity to do the act goes only to the weight of the evidence.” Commonwealth v. Lussier, 364 Mass. 414, 421 , 305 N.E.2d 499 (1973), quoting Commonwealth v. Medei-ros, 354 Mass. 193, 197 , 236 N.E.2d 642 (1968). The weight of the evidence is a jury question. See Commonwealth v. Swartz, 343 Mass. 709, 713 , 180 N.E.2d 685 (1962).”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Germain v. Butler“The record of prior convictions [may be] used as a factor because the convictions were recent, and the crimes sufficiently similar to be relevant on the determination of probable cause.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the resolution of doubtful or marginal cases ... should be largely determined by the preference to be accorded to warrants.”
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.