Commonwealth v. Lopez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 2 district · 82 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 88 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Many other States have specifically relied on the Parke decision to reject collateral challenges to long-closed convictions by plea where sentencing enhancement is involved. We conclude that a collateral challenge, like the defendant’s, to a prior conviction by guilty plea, if the challenge is to advance at all, must be accompanied by sufficient credible and reliable evidence to rebut a presumption that the prior conviction was valid. If a defendant meets this burden, then an evidentiary hearing may be warranted at which the burden will be on the Commonwealth to show that the defendant’s plea proceedings were conducted in a way that protected his constitutional rights.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hall v. State · State v. McCann

2. “"lal far different situation exists, however, when the defendant leaves his guilty pleas unchallenged for a lengthy period of time, so that the contemporaneous record of the plea is lost (by prop er destruction of the stenographer's notes or erasure of the tape recording pursuant to court rules), and means of reconstruction are made impractical or impossible due to the death or retirement of judges and court reporters, the unavailability of witnesses, the inherent weaknesses and failures of recollection, and other factors commonly associated with the passage of time. At this point, the absence of a record, and the inability effectively to reconstruct it, may be directly attributed to the defendant's delay and may be said to be the defendant's fault. In such a case, the defendant's attack on his pleas by means of a rule 30(b) [post-conviction] motion nee-essarily proceeds on a basis extrinsic to the unavailable contemporaneous record.... ' Integral to this reasoning is the presumption of regularity and the important policy of finality. Rule 30(b) motions, like the motions in this case, filed after conviction and sentencing[,] are considered collateral attacks on the final decision." Id. at 812-18 (citations omitted)."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hall v. State · Commonwealth v. Wheeler

3. “When sentence enhancement is an issue, the Commonwealth has the burden of proving the existence of a defendant’s pri- or, valid convictions, and it is assisted with this burden by the “presumption of regularity.” Because every final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction is presumed “to have been rightly done,” a “final” criminal conviction is entitled to a “presumption of regularity” when challenged collaterally, even on the ground that it was constitutionally invalid. Thus, if the Commonwealth offers evidence sufficient to prove the existence of a defendant’s prior criminal conviction, a presumption arises that the prior conviction was obtained in compliance with the defendant’s right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. McCann · State v. McCann