Commonwealth v. Amos’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 130 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 140 later decisions — most recently May 2022 · most notably Commonwealth v. Cabeza (1983), Commonwealth v. Clemmons (1984)
8 federal appellate · 130 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 Michelson v. United States · Commonwealth v. Drum · Commonwealth v. Raymond · Commonwealth v. Commander · Jones v. United States
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 140 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[E]vidence of the victim’s prior convictions involving aggression may be admitted, if probative, either (1) to corroborate the defendant’s alleged knowledge of the victim’s violent character, to prove that the defendant was in reasonable fear of danger, or (2) as character/propensity evidence, as indirect evidence that the victim was in fact the aggressor.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“(1) to corroborate [the defendant’s] alleged knowledge of the victim’s quarrelsome and violent character to show that the defendant reasonably believed that his life was in danger; or (2) to prove the allegedly violent propensities of the victim to show that the victim was in fact the aggressor. [[Image here]] Nor do we mean to suggest that our decision here abandons the rule enunciated [sic] in [Abernethy v. Commonwealth, 101 Pa. 322 (1882) ] that the defendant must first establish a foundation of his knowledge of the victim’s convictions before he can introduce the corroboratory record when the defendant is seeking to prove his belief that he was in imminent danger of bodily harm. Here again, the determination whether or not the defendant demonstrates a sufficiently particular knowledge of the victim’s record rests within the sound discretion of the trial court.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[WJhere a defendant alleges self-defense, he may use his deceased victim’s criminal record either (1) to corroborate his alleged knowledge of the victim’s quarrelsome and violent character to show that the defendant reasonably believed that his life was in danger; or (2) to prove the allegedly violent propensities of the victim to show that the victim was in fact the aggressor.”
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.