Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist
← 419 MASS 28 - Commonwealth v. Pierce

Commonwealth v. Pierce’s Empirical Analysis

1994

Citation profile

51
cited by 51 later decisions
1
states following
June 2022
most recently cited

6 district · 45 state decisions

How this case has been cited

Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Commonwealth v. Sanna (1997), Commonwealth v. Acevedo (2006)

6 district · 45 state decisions

2301994200020102020decided

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. Walden · Commonwealth v. Bianco · Commonwealth v. Sires · Commonwealth v. Bianco · Commonwealth v. Lawrence

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

  1. ““There are two aspects of involuntary manslaughter. Commonwealth v. Sneed, 413 Mass. 387 , 393 n.4 (1992). One aspect involves wanton and reckless conduct causing death. Id. The other concerns an unintentional killing resulting from a battery not amounting to a felony which the defendant knew or should have known endangered human life. Commonwealth v. Fitzmeyer, 414 Mass. 540, 547 (1993). An instruction on involuntary manslaughter is required where any view of the evidence will permit a finding of manslaughter and not murder. Commonwealth v. Sires, 413 Mass. 292, 301 (1992). When it is obvious, however, 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. Commonwealth v. Fitzmeyer, supra at 547 .””
    1 later decision quote this exact passage
  2. “it was not the type of behavior that would provoke a reasonable person into a homicidal response.”
    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.