Commonwealth v. King’s Empirical Analysis
2005
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 149 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 154 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Commonwealth v. Vick (2009), Commonwealth v. Dwyer (2006)
4 federal appellate · 149 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Crawford v. Washington · Commonwealth v. Latimore · State v. Troupe · Commonwealth v. Flebotte · State v. Middleton
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 154 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the underlying purpose of first complaint evidence is still 'to counterbalance or address inaccurate assumptions regarding stereotypes about delayed reporting of a sexual assault or about sexual assault victims in general'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“"By 'circumstances,' we mean that the witness may testify to his or her observations of the complainant during the complaint; the events or conversations that culminated in the complaint; the timing of the complaint; and other relevant conditions that might help a jury assess the veracity of the complainant's allegations or assess the specific defense theories as to why the complainant is making a false allegation."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“"The length of time between the alleged crime and the report of the complainant to this witness is one factor you may consider in evaluating the complainant's testimony, but you may also consider that sexual assault complainants may delay reporting the crime for a variety of reasons."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.