Commonwealth v. Powell’s Empirical Analysis
2001
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently August 2023
2 federal appellate · 17 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 Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Schoonejongen · McCarthy v. Bronson · Wrenn v. Benson · Commonwealth v. Delgado · Commonwealth v. Rosa
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“items that are used or displayed in a way such that they reasonably appear capable of causing serious injury or death”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Dangerous weapons include those displayed in a way such that they reasonably appear capable of causing serious injury or death. An object that is, on closer inspection, incapable of inflicting serious injury or death can still be a dangerous weapon if, at the time of the offense, it would have been reasonable to believe that it was capable of inflicting such injury." 21”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“A person who uses a toy gun or other fake weapon to commit a robbery may be convicted of armed robbery if the victim reasonably took it to be a real weapon capable of inflicting bodily injury. The law of armed robbery does not require the Commonwealth to show that the instrument was actually used. It is sufficient if the Commonwealth proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was actually armed with a dangerous weapon.”
1 later decision 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.