Commonwealth v. Jones’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The traditional rule in Massachusetts, as embodied in Morey v. Commonwealth, 108 Mass. 433, 434 (1871), and its progeny, is that a defendant may properly be punished for two crimes arising out of the same course of conduct provided that each crime requires proof of an element that the other does not. See Commonwealth v. Buckley, 410 Mass. 209, 222 (1991); Commonwealth v. Crocker, 384 Mass. 353, 357 (1981); Kuklis v. Commonwealth, 361 Mass. 302, 306-307 (1972). As long as each offense includes an element that the other does not, ‘neither crime is a lesser-included offense of the other, and convictions on both are deemed to have been authorized by the Legislature and hence not [duplicative].’ Commonwealth v. Jones, 382 Mass. 387, 393 (1981). At the same time, a court may examine whether the actions of a defendant were ‘so closely related in fact as to constitute in substance but a single crime.’ Commonwealth v. St. Pierre, 377 Mass. 650, 662-663 (1979). In such cases, the defendant cannot properly be sentenced both for the more serious crime and the lesser included offense. See Commonwealth v. Thomas, 401 Mass. 109, 119-121 (1987) (indictment for indecent assault and battery dismissed where defendant convicted of rape). Cf. Commonwealth v. Jones, supra at 394 (although vehicular homicide not lesser included crime of manslaughter, two offenses were sufficiently closely related so as to preclude punishment on both).””

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