Commonwealth v. Sires’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 4 district · 122 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 132 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Commonwealth v. Mello (1995), Commonwealth v. Curtis (1994)
4 federal appellate · 4 district · 122 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Anthony v. United States · Addington v. Texas · Commonwealth v. Tavares · Commonwealth v. Welansky
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 132 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he difference between the elements of the third prong of malice and wanton and reckless conduct amounting to involuntary manslaughter lies in the degree of risk of physical harm that a reasonable person would recognize was created by particular conduct, based on what the defendant knew. For the purposes of third prong malice, the risk is that there was a plain and strong likelihood of death. The risk that will satisfy the standard for wilful and wanton conduct amounting to involuntary manslaughter involves a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to another. Consequently, when it is obvious that the risk of physical harm to the victim created a plain and strong likelihood that death will follow, an instruction on involuntary manslaughter is not required.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The defendant argues that there was a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice because the judge required the defendant to exercise his peremptory challenges after the individual voir dires of each juror. This practice is not in violation of Rule 6 of the Rules of Superior Court (amended, effective April 1, 1989). The subject was within the discretion of the judge, and he did not abuse that discretion.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“to do an act which, in the circumstances known to the defendant, a reasonable person would have known created a plain and strong likelihood that death would follow”
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.