Commonwealth v. Sisak’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
145 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 145 later decisions — most recently August 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. Stoltzfus (1975), Commonwealth v. Tervalon (1975)
145 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 Jackson v. Denno · Douglas v. People of State of California · Commonwealth v. Kloiber · Smith v. Westchester County Bar Ass'n · Commonwealth v. Simon
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 145 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. . . that a party whose requested point, although erroneous, alerts the trial judge to an important issue in the case, does have just cause for complaint if the law to which that point pertains is not otherwise correctly stated in the charge.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“is to be carefully scrutinized and accepted with caution.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[The dissent] concludes, however, [ ] that error cannot now be considered because no exception was taken to the court’s charge by defense counsel and because, in the view of the minority, the error was not basic and fundamental. The special-exception rule, as has so often been stated, is designed to prevent a party from sitting silently by, taking his chances on a favorable verdict, and then, in the event of an unfavorable verdict, complaining of matters which could have been corrected at trial had they been brought to the attention of the court in a timely fashion. In the present case, however, appellant’s counsel did not remain silent and await the verdict. Rather, he requested five points for charge addressed to the accomplice rule. Each of these points was refused, and defendant was granted an exception. The formal submission of requested points for charge serves the same function as a request for additional or different instructions at the close of the court’s charge. Both procedures present the issue to the trial judge. Both enable the court to avoid error by charging on the issue presented. In the case at bar, it would serve no useful purpose to require the defendant to request additional instructions ... since the court had already rejected points for charge because of its belief that as a matter of law [the instruction was not warranted].”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.