Commonwealth v. Rivera’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 29 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Pedro Ramos, the head of an extensive drug organization in Holyoke, ordered the killing of two persons [Angel Carcano and Guillermo Santiago] to avenge wrongs which Ramos believed those persons had committed against him and his operation. One had assisted the police in the preparation for the execution of several search warrants which had led to the seizure of extensive physical evidence and to the arrest of Ramos and several other members of his drug organization. The evidence warranted the jurors’ concluding that a member of Ramos’s drug organization planned the murders and hired the defendant to carry out Ramos’s order. The girl friend of one of the victims told police about an eyewitness, who, in turn, waived his Miranda rights and gave a detailed statement implicating the defendant and others in the murders. The police arrested the defendant based on this information. The eyewitness said that he was ordered to drive the two victims, the defendant, and a co-defendant, Iran Diaz, to the scene of the murders. The eyewitness said that the victims were dragged from the vehicle, and that the defendant shot one victim in the chest. That victim died within minutes. The other victim attempted to flee, and Diaz shot him in the back. The victim fell to the pavement but was still alive and trying to crawl away. The defendant alerted Diaz, and Diaz then shot the victim several times.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rivera v. Nolan

2. ““To provide victims a meaningful role in the criminal justice system, victims and witnesses of crime. . . shall be afforded the following basic and fundamental rights, to the greatest extent possible . . . (m)... to be informed of the right to submit to or decline an interview by defense counsel or anyone acting on the defendant’s behalf, except when responding to lawful process, and if the victim or witness decides to submit to an interview, the right to impose reasonable conditions on the conduct of the interview” (emphasis supplied).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Barnes-Miller

3. “because the booking officer never questioned the defendant, and other officers did so only after three and one-half hours had passed.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 93 Mass. App. Ct. 1106 - Commonwealth v. Jordan