Commonwealth v. Greene’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 49 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 71 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Basista v. Weir (1965), 288 Pa. Super. 290 - Commonwealth v. Koch (1981)
6 federal appellate · 49 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.
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 71 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he offense of disorderly conduct is not intended as a catchall for every act which annoys or disturbs people; it is not to be used as a dragnet for all the irritations which breed in the ferment of a community. It has a specific purpose; it has a definitive objective, it is intended to preserve the public peace; it has thus a limited periphery beyond which the prosecuting authorities have no right to transgress any more than the alleged criminal has the right to operate within its clear outlined circumference.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage“(a) Offense defined.—A person is guilty of disorderly con-' duct if, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he: (1) engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; (2) makes unreasonable noise; (3) uses obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or (4) creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which selves no legitimate purpose of the actor.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“In Pennsylvania the crime of disorderly conduct embraces activity which disturbs the peace and dignity of a community. The inebriate who runs pell mell through crowded streets, pushing, elbowing and jostling in such a way that people protest and pursue him vengefully is a candidate for the charge of disorderly conduct. Exploding cannon crackers in the public square in the middle of the night is disorderly conduct. The burning of crosses by persons in grotesque costumes, to the consternation of the population of the community, is disorderly conduct. A fight on a street corner, attracting numerous onlookers with the vociferous taking of sides by the spectators, constitutes disorderly conduct. These are only illustrations chosen at random, of which there might be hundreds. While noise may break tranquility, upset rest, destroy sleep and fracture serenity, it does not of itself break the public peace, an indispensable feature of the crime of disorderly conduct, when the traveling public is not disturbed. If the production of noise alone made out the crime of disorderly conduct, then the coffers of the Commonwealth and municipalities entitled to monetary returns could be filled with fines assessed and collected from cheering football and basketball fans, riveting hammer operators, gong-clanging street car motormen, airplane pilots, siren-sounding ambulance drivers, missile tester, amusement park devotees, bathroom soloists, fife and drum players, trombone zealots, fireworks enthus”
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.