Commonwealth v. Sollivan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““For over 100 years, it has been held that in order to obtain a conviction for the crime of larceny in a building, ‘it is not enough [for the Commonwealth] to prove that the property stolen was in a building at the time of the theft, and that the defendant was the thief. It is necessary to show also that the property was under the protection of the building, placed there for safe keeping, and not under the eye or personal care of some one in the building.’ Commonwealth v. Lester, 129 Mass. 101, 103 (1880). See Robinson v. Van Auken, 190 Mass. 161, 163, 165, 167-168 (1906). See also McDermott v. W.T. Grant Co., 313 Mass. 736, 737 (1943) (shoplifting in a store ‘would [not] . . . constitute larceny in a building under [G. L.] c. 266, § 20, for the property was under the protection of the [store’s] servants rather than that of the building’).””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Cruz