Commonwealth v. Butler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

36 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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The question of admissibility of bad act evidence and whether a stated purpose is permissible will largely depend on the circumstances of each case, and admissibility is properly left to the sound discretion of the trial judge.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 93 Mass. App. Ct. 1119 - Commonwealth v. Gould

2. “The two protective orders demonstrated that the defendant and [the victim] had, at different times, a continuous hostile relationship and had been 'sufficiently estranged'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 92 Mass. App. Ct. 1129 - Commonwealth v. Valdes

3. “the jury appear to have paid attention to the judge's warnings about misuse of the evidence because they acquitted the defendant on the serious assault and battery charge”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 93 Mass. App. Ct. 1107 - Commonwealth v. Resto