431 Pa. Super. 91 - Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently December 2019
16 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 Commonwealth v. Dugger · Eckman v. Commonwealth · Commonwealth v. Peterson · Commonwealth v. Hughes · Commonwealth v. Claypool
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A determination of whether evidence is admissible under the common plan exception must be made on a case by case basis in accordance with the unique facts and circumstances of each case. However, we recognize that in each case, the trial court is bound to follow the same controlling, albeit general, principles of law. When ruling upon the admissibility of evidence under the common plan exception, the trial court must first examine the details and surrounding circumstances of each criminal incident to assure that the evidence reveals criminal conduct which is distinctive and so nearly identical as to become the signature of the same perpetrator. Relevant to such a finding will be the habits or patterns of action or conduct undertaken by the perpetrator to commit crime, as well as the time, place, and types of victims typically chosen by the perpetrator.”
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.