Commonwealth v. Bunter’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 37 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 40 later decisions — most recently February 1993 · most notably Commonwealth v. Bolden (1977), Commonwealth v. Hamilton (1972)
3 federal appellate · 37 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3182
Relies on Duncan v. State of Louisiana · Illinois v. Allen · Klopfer v. State of North Carolina · Smith v. Hooey · Bloom v. Illinois
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 40 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The salient point of this argument is that despite the fact that the United States has not signed this interstate compact, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that Pennsylvania not discriminate in terms of granting a speedy trial between persons extradited from states that are signatories and prisoners coming from nonsignatory jurisdictions. This argument must fail for several reasons. It is certainly true that Pennsylvania cannot deny to any person whom it has charged with committing a crime the right to a speedy trial. But with regard to prisoners extradited from certain states with which it has entered into prior agreement, the Commonwealth will accord the right to a speedy trial in a particularized manner, namely by following the provisions of the detainer act. Hence, 19 P.S. § 1431 et seq., is ancillary to the right of a speedy trial and not a substitution for it. Since the federal government is not a party to the interstate compact, the appellant is not entitled to the benefit of the provisions of the Pennsylvania act.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““When the attorney for the Commonwealth certifies to the court of common Pleas that a preliminary hearing cannot be held for a defendant because the defendant cannot be found in the Commonwealth or that the statute of limitations will run prior to the time when a preliminary hearing can be held or that a preliminary hearing cannot be held for other good cause, the court may grant leave to the attorney for the Commonwealth to present a bill of indictment to the grand jury without a preliminary hearing.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[t]he Equal Protection argument would have merit only if it could be shown that the Commonwealth was discriminating purposefully or intentionally between those whom it had charged with crime, granting to some a speedy trial while denying it to others . . . . [I]t does not follow that there has been purposeful discrimination because such a trial is not provided under the terms of the interstate compact.”
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.