444 Pa. Super. 652 - Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently September 2016
17 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 North Carolina v. Pearce · North Carolina v. Alford · Brady v. United States · Santobello v. New York · Bordenkircher v. Hayes
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he guilty plea and the frequently concomitant plea bargain are valuable implements in our criminal justice system. The disposition of criminal charges by agreement between the prosecutor and the accused, ... is an essential component of the administration of justice. Properly administered, it is to be encouraged. In this Commonwealth, the practice of plea bargaining is generally regarded favorably, and is legitimized and governed by court rule.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]here is an affirmative duty on the part of the prosecutor to honor any and all promises made in exchange for a defendant’s plea. Our courts have demanded strict compliance with that duty in order to avoid any possible perversion of the plea bargaining system, evidencing the concern that a defendant might be coerced into a bargain or fraudulently induced to give up the very valued constitutional guarantees attendant the right to trial by jury.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Because this disposition may disturb the sentencing scheme of the court below, [Appellant's] judgment of sentence is vacated in its entirety.”
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.