Commonwealth v. DeSouza’s Empirical Analysis
1999
Citation profile
22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently September 2019
22 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 Young v. United States ex rel. Vuitton · Williams v. Lynaugh, Director, Texas Department of Corrections · Commonwealth v. Garcia · Commonwealth v. Bastarache · Commonwealth v. Mandile
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The question whether the inflammatory quality of a photograph outweighs its probative value and precludes its admission is determined in the sound discretion of the trial judge. See Commonwealth v. Berry, 420 Mass. 95, 108 (1995); Commonwealth v. Ramos, 406 Mass. 397, 407 (1990); Commonwealth v. Repoza, 382 Mass. 119, 129 (1980), S.C., 400 Mass. 516 , cert. denied, 484 U.S. 935 (1987); Commonwealth v. Bys, 370 Mass. 350, 361 (1976). The fact that a photograph is cumulative of other evidence has not required the exclusion of the photograph. See Commonwealth v. Campbell, 375 Mass. 308, 313 (1978); Commonwealth v. Bys, supra at 359-360 . Even if a defendant agrees to stipulate to the facts that an offered photograph tends to prove, it is generally not error to admit it. Commonwealth v. Nadworny, 396 Mass. 342, 367 (1985), cert. denied, All U.S. 904 (1986). This court has almost never ruled that it was error to admit photographs of crime scenes and homicide victims. But see Commonwealth v. Richmond, 371 Mass. 563, 565 (1976) (error to admit photographs of victim’s head partially eaten away by dogs). Cf. Commonwealth v. Bastarache, 382 Mass. 86, 106 (1980) (commenting on special limitation of admissibility of photograph where body has been altered in course of autopsy). A judge may appropriately attempt to mitigate the potentially prejudicial nature of a photograph by instructing the jury that the photograph is to be used in analyzing the evidence and is not designed to elicit sy”
3 later decisions 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.