Commonwealth v. Mills’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 120 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 130 later decisions — most recently April 2020 · most notably United States v. Pungitore (1990), Commonwealth v. Campana (1974)
8 federal appellate · 120 state decisions — followed in 17 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2113
Relies on Benton v. Maryland · Elkins v. United States · Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor · Bartkus v. People of State of Illinois · Abbate 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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) It is in derogation of the principle that "no one should be twice vexed for the one and the same cause"; and (2) It destroys finality from the individual's standpoint and permits the governments with all their resources and power to make repeated attempts to convict, thus subjecting the accused to live in a continuous state of anxiety, insecurity and possible harassment.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage““First, guilt should be established by proving the elements of a crime to the satisfaction of a single jury, not by capitalizing on the increased probability of conviction resulting from repeated prosecutions before many juries. Thus reprosecution for the same offense is prohibited. Second, the prosecution should not be able to search for an agreeable sentence by bringing successive prosecutions for the same offense before different judges. Thus reprosecution after a convicition is prohibited. Third, criminal trials should not become an instrument for unnecessarily badgering individuals. Thus the Constitution forbids a second trial —a second jeopardy — and not merely a conviction at the second trial. Finally, judges should not impose multiple punishment for a single legislatively defined offense. Thus multiple punishment for the same offense at a single trial is prohibited.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“. we are really involved in a balancing process, whereby we place the interests of the two sovereigns on one side of the judicial scale, and on the other side we place the interest of the individual to be free from twice being prosecuted and punished for the same offense, (pp. 640-641)”
3 later decisions 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.