4 Va. App. 3 - Clark v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
28
cited by 28 later decisions
1
states following
April 2005
most recently cited
1 federal appellate · 25 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Washington v. Commonwealth · Fowlkes v. Commonwealth · State v. Tharp
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Code § 19.2-243 is intended to assure the defendant’s right to a speedy trial and society’s interest in “swift and certain justice.” To allow the prosecution to circumvent this by “delaying trial on one charge and subsequently proceeding on another closely related charge” foils both society’s and a defendant’s interest in speedy justice. This practice would shift the legislative determination of a speedy trial from the General Assembly to the prosecuting attorney. The General Assembly’s intent should not be so easily frustrated. The conspiracy charges and the underlying substantive offenses were based on the same act or transaction and thus could be joined for trial. See Rules 3A:10(b) and 3A:6(b). The evidence used to prove the conspiracy charges was the same that would have been required to prove the underlying substantive offenses, and the conspiracy charges could have been included in the same indictment arid tried contemporaneously with the underlying substantive offenses. Therefore, we conclude that the discharge from prosecution for the substantive offenses also bars the Commonwealth from prosecuting the defendant for conspiracy charges based on the same offenses, and the trial court erred in denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss these charges for failure to provide him a speedy trial under Code § 19.2-243.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“if a defendant is not brought to trial within the required time, he should be discharged from any future prosecution 'for the offense charged and for any other offense required to be joined with that offense.'”
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.