Commonwealth v. Therrien’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently May 2014
3 federal appellate · 11 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 Victor v. Nebraska · Cage v. Louisiana · Brown v. United States · Brower v. United States · Hopt v. People
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt. There are very few things in this world that we know with absolute certainty, and in criminal cases the law does not require proof that overcomes every possible doubt. If, based on your consideration of the evidence, you are firmly convinced that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, you must find him guilty. If on the other hand, you think there is a real possibility that he is not guilty, you must give him the benefit of the doubt and find him not guilty.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“in light of recent cases criticizing the use of”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Simpson v. Matesanz
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.