Commonwealth v. Medina’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 3 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently June 2022 · most notably Commonwealth v. Vasquez (2010), Lattimore v. Dubois (2002)
6 federal appellate · 3 district · 19 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 Chapman v. State of California · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Estelle v. McGuire · Pierce v. Underwood · Sandstrom v. Montana
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“To conclude that the burden-shifting presumption in the instruction was harmless and did not contribute to the jury's verdict, the evidence considered by the jury in accordance with the instructions must be 'so overwhelming as to leave it beyond a reasonable doubt that the verdict resting on that evidence would have been the same in the absence of the presumption.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[I]f the evidence that the jury found sufficient to prove that fact (here, [a cruel act]) is so closely bound up with the ultimate fact presumed (here, malice) that they could not reasonably have found the former without also finding the latter, then the presumption was, beyond a reasonable doubt, harmless to the defendant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[M]alice ... means every unlawful motive that may be inferred from unlawful killing, and when there are no circumstances disclosed tending to show justification or excuse, there is nothing to rebut the presumption of malice. Mal ice ... include[s] any intent to inflict injury upon another without legal excuse or palliation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Medina 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.