Commonwealth v. Fudeman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

26 state decisions

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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““When the president judge, in the district having jurisdiction of any criminal proceedings, before any court of oyer and terminer, general jail delivery, or quarter sessions, in this Commonwealth, shall request the Attorney General to do so, in writing, setting forth that, in his judgment, the case is a proper one for the Commonwealth’s intervention, the Attorney General is hereby authorized and empowered to retain and employ a special attorney or attorneys, as he may deem necessary, properly to represent the Commonwealth in such proceedings, and to investigate charges, and prosecute the alleged offenders against the law. Any attorney, so retained and employed, shall supersede the district attorney of the county in which the case or cases may arise, and shall investigate, prepare, and bring to trial the case or cases to which he may be assigned. He shall take the oath of office required by law to be taken by district attorneys, and shall be clothed with all the powers and subject to all the liabilities imposed upon them by law. The compensation for services rendered, and necessary expenses incurred by such attorney or attorneys, shall be fixed by the Attorney General.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Schab · Gwinn v. Kane

2. “It cannot be supported historically, statutorily, or jurisprudentially. There are several decisions of this Court which, from a standpoint of rote and poll-parrotism, warrant the present Majority in making the assertion it makes in this case, but the fact remains, nevertheless, that the Attorney General does not have and never did have the absolute power to decide for himself if, when, and to what extent he should take over the duties, functions and responsibilities of a District Attorney. Within recent years the authority of the Attorney General has been overflowing the banks of constitutional channels until it threatens to inundate, smother, and choke local prosecuting authority. The time has come, and is indeed long past overdue, to bring the concept of the power of the Attorney General within its constitutional limitations. And the one to perform that job is this Court, because this Court has been mostly responsible for creating the fiction, the legend, and the absurdity that an appointed official with his office in Harrisburg, may at his pleasure take over the offices of district attorneys in 67 counties and run them to suit his own ideas of government, as well as his whim, caprice, and ambitions. Such a notion runs counter to every principle of American democracy where the power to govern stems from the people, and the people alone. In all the literature on the subject one cannot find any authority to justify the incredulous assumption that an appointed officer (the Att”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 341 Pa. Super. 232 - Commonwealth v. Carsia

3. “Even a cursory reading of the opinions in those cases will readily disclose that no question as to common law power in the Attorney General to supersede a District Attorney of his own motion was present for decision. Indeed, the matter had never been passed upon at com mon law for the all-sufficient reason that elected prosecuting officers were unknown to its political institutions. Ever since the creation of the offices of Attorney General and Solicitor General in England several centuries ago, prosecuting attorneys (beyond the two officers just mentioned) have been and still are the Attorney General’s own appointees and, of course, subject to removal or supersession by him at his pleasure. Manifestly, no analogy can rightly be drawn between that system and the system which has obtained in Pennsylvania since the creation of the office of elective District Attorney by the Act of May 3, 1850, P.L. 654, Sec. 1, — an office later, and still, ordained by the Constitution of 1874 (Art. XIV, Secs. 1 and 2). The idea that a mere political appointee, beholden to his appointer and not to the people for his tenure, can, of his own volition, set aside and supersede a duly elected constitutional officer runs counter to even the most limited conception of the republican form of democratic government which this Commonwealth was established to secure and maintain and which the National Government is charged by the Federal Constitution (Art. IV, Sec. 4) to guarantee to every State. (Emphasis”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 341 Pa. Super. 232 - Commonwealth v. Carsia