Commonwealth v. McCourt’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 11 state decisions

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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Whoever has sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse with a person, and compels such person to submit by force and against his will, or compels such person to submit by threat of bodily injury and if either such sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse [1] results in or is committed with acts resulting in serious bodily injury, or [2] is committed by a joint enterprise, or [3] is committed during the commission or attempted commission of an offense defined in [G. L. c. 265, §§ 15A, 15B, 17, 19, or 26 ], [G. L. c. 266, §§ 14, 15, 16, 17, or 18,] or [G. L. c. 269, § 10,] shall be punished ...."”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Butler v. O'Brien · Commonwealth v. Brown

2. “to protect victims of violent sex offenders, by punishing more severely perpetrators ... who commit other felonies against the victim in addition to the rape.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Gilbert

3. “[t]he critical point is ... whether the rape victim ... was subjected to other felonious conduct ... during the same criminal episode,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Gilbert