Commonwealth v. Cater’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 federal appellate · 20 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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘We must interpret the phrase “equally responsible” to mean equally contributing to the result. What considerations would impel one to conclude that three men equally responsible for a criminal act are not equally culpable? If there be any such considerations, we conceive that they must arise from differences in the acts or attitudes of the individual participants in the commission of the crime {which, if they exist, would negative equal responsibility), or from differences in the personalities and backgrounds of the participants, aside from the criminal act itself, or from differences in the attitudes of the participants after . the commission of the crime which might incline the sentencing authority in the direction of less severity towards one than towards another. We can find nothing in this case to cause us to regard Cater and Rivers as being less responsible than Williams, or less blameworthy.’ ” Emphasis supplied by Mr. Justice Cohen in his dissenting opinion at 402 Pa. 58 -59, 166 A.2d 44 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States ex rel. Rivers v. Myers

2. ““I considered it patently obvious that our reference to the fact that Cater and Rivers ‘were equally responsible with Williams’ ( 396 Pa. 172, 176 , 152 A.2d 259, 262 ) in the context of discussing the appellants’ guilt of first degree murder under the ‘felony-murder’ rule was not in the slightest way meant to have any bearing on the separate and distinct determination to be made as to the proper punishment to be imposed. Most apparently the court below seized upon this remark and from it derived the notion that this Court meant to indicate that the three participants were equally culpable and should thus receive equal punishment. Nothing could be further from the fact. Quite to the contrary, I had serious doubts (not since allayed) as to the propriety of the imposition of the death sentence under the circumstances surrounding these two boys.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States ex rel. Rivers v. Myers

3. ““On the evening of March 26, 1957, three young men planned and perpetrated a robbery at the pharmacy of Jacob Viner, a North Philadelphia druggist. One of the robbers accompanied Viner to the rear of the establishment, and after warning the druggist to ‘shut-up,’ shot and killed him in the presence of his wife. The pharmacy’s cash register was rifled of some $34 and the trio made good their escape.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States ex rel. Rivers v. Myers