Commonwealth v. Evans’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2022 · most notably Commonwealth v. Goodreau (2004), Commonwealth v. Anderson (2005)
4 federal appellate · 2 district · 22 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 United States v. Radio Television News Directors Ass'n · Commonwealth v. Latimore · Goldberg v. Ellett · Williams v. Lynaugh, Director, Texas Department of Corrections · McGinnis v. Hadix
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Because [the defendant] removed the gun from his pocket, the grand jury could have inferred that the barrel length was less than sixteen inches”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“There is no reason to believe that the Commonwealth’s fingerprint expert was wrong in concluding that there was insufficient fingerprint detail on either gun to make an identification. Nor is there reason to believe that he was wrong in concluding that in only about two per cent of cases do guns yield identifiable fingerprints, and in cases where prints can be identified, the age of the print cannot be determined. Thus, fingerprint evidence also was not a substantial part of the Commonwealth’s case, [citation omitted] Even if fingerprint evidence could show that Tinsley had once touched the Heckler & Koch handgun, it would not prove that John had not also touched it. Given the Commonwealth’s eyewitness testimony that John had fired the Heckler & Koch, and Jimmy’s admission that he fired the Ruger at Walaikum’s, the Commonwealth’s case against both John and Jimmy would not have been undermined.”
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.