Commonwealth v. Waters’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 4 district · 54 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably United States v. Martinez (1989), State v. Savage (1990)
3 federal appellate · 4 district · 54 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 Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Stovall v. Denno · Jackson v. Denno · Colorado v. Connelly · Chevron Oil Co. v. Huson
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 61 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Unlike most other rights, the right to testify is counterpoised by the right not to testify. Therefore, the exercise of one right is the waiver of the other. The decision whether to testify, ultimately the defendant's decision, is an important strategic decision made by the defendant with the advice of counsel. Often, the decision is made only as the trial unfolds. We do not think that the right to testify would be protected by requiring the judge to conduct a voir dire examination. Not only would the proper point at the trial to conduct the voir dire be uncertain, but the judge's role in this strategic decision would be problematic; to the extent the judge appeared to urge the defendant to exercise the right to testify, the judge would appear to urge the defendant to waive the right not to testify. [ 506 N.E. 2d at 865 ].”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The admissibility of photographic evidence is left to the discretion of the trial judge, and we will overturn the judge's decision only where a defendant is able to bear the heavy burden of demonstrating an abuse of that discretion.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[t]he jury knew that the defendant had been arrested for the crime[s] being tried,”
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.