Commonwealth v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently September 2019
3 federal appellate · 13 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 Commonwealth v. Harrington · Commonwealth v. Stokes · Commonwealth v. Kendrick · Department of Youth Services v. a Juvenile · Commonwealth v. Martin
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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“once the issue of self-defense has been fairly raised, the jury should [be] instructed on the legal consequences of using manifestly disproportionate violence in the supposed exercise of the right of self-defense. If the jury [conclude] that [the defendant] had the right to use force to defend himself but that the force used was excessive ... they would [be] warranted in finding [the defendant] guilty only of manslaughter.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“the degree of criminal liability becomes the issue, and the defendant's guilt may be mitigated if, in the circumstances, he had a right to use force in defense of another, but used excessive force.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the use of excessive force in defense of another does not cause the defendant to lose the benefit of the defense entirely . . . but instead may warrant a finding of manslaughter.”
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.