441 Pa. Super. 241 - Commonwealth v. Soto’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Although Appellant contends that the trial court erred in placing upon him the burden of proving self-defense, the burden did not shift from the Common wealth throughout the trial. Once the issue of self-defense had been vaguely raised by Appellant, the Commonwealth sustained its burden of proof by demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant did not reasonably believe that he was in danger of death or serious bodily injury and that his response was improper. Even if Appellant feared Mr. Kedra, the court found that Appellant’s use of deadly force, after he claimed Mr. Kedra had pushed him, was unwarranted and unreasonable. Despite the fact that the court believed Appellant’s character evidence, this does not negate the fact that the court ultimately found Appellant’s response in this situation to be completely inappropriate and that the use of a deadly weapon in the altercation was unreasonable. Based upon all of the evidence, the court concluded that [Appellant] could not have reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of serious bodily injury, in order to justify the use of a box cutter, where there was no threat of deadly force. Therefore, the Commonwealth satisfied its burden by establishing that the accused did not reasonably believe that he was in danger of death or serious bodily injury.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 2014 Pa. Super. 165 - Commonwealth v. Smith