Commonwealth v. Sullivan’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 39 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2014 · most notably Cuyler v. Sullivan (1980), Commonwealth v. Sullivan (1977)
3 federal appellate · 39 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 Witherspoon v. Illinois · Bumper v. North Carolina · Lawrence Metze v. New York · Maxwell v. Bishop · Commonwealth Ex Rel. Butler v. Rundle
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Finally, we hold that a defendant may not render evidence which is necessarily a part of the Commonwealth’s case irrelevant and inadmissible merely by offering to stipulate. Specifically, photographs which would otherwise be of essential evidentiary value cannot be rendered inadmissible because of a stipulation (by one who does not admit to the crime) that the murderers had specific intent and premeditation. The Commonwealth, with its burden of establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, may not be denied the right to prove every essential element of the crime by the most convincing evidence it is able to produce. Commonwealth v. Bonomo, 396 Pa. 222 , 151 A.2d 441 (1959); Commonwealth ex rel. Butler v. Rundle, 429 Pa. 141 , 239 A.2d 426 (1968); see also, State v. Jensen, 209 Or. 239 , 296 P.2d 618 (1956), appeal dis-”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““The picture of one in death, particularly if the death resulted from violent means, can never be expected to be an aesthetic or pleasant vision”. Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 446 Pa. 419, 435 , 286 A.2d 898, 904 (1971). (Opinion in Support of Affirmance).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Get out of the building and don't say nothing,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Sullivan v. Cuyler
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.