Commonwealth v. Pollard’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
96 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 99 later decisions — most recently July 2007 · most notably Commonwealth v. Swanger (1973), Commonwealth v. Lovette (1982)
96 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 Terry v. Ohio · Wong Sun v. United States · Sibron v. State of New York Peters · McCray v. State of Illinois · Commonwealth v. Hicks
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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"`Although abandoned property may normally be obtained and used for evidentiary purposes by the police, such property may not be utilized where the abandonment is coerced by unlawful police action.'"”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Further, as was previously noted, appellant was not the driver of the automobile.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Although abandoned property may normally be obtained and used for evidentiary purposes by the police, such property may not be utilized where the abandonment is coerced by unlawful police action. As the Fifth Circuit noted in Fletcher v. Wainwright: “Several courts have considered this situation and have uniformly held that the initial illegality tainted the seizure of the evidence since the throwing was the direct consequence of the illegal entry. In such a situation it cannot be said that there was a ‘voluntary abandonment’ of the evidence. The only courts that have allowed the seizure of evidence that was thrown out the window have emphasized that ‘no improper or unlawful act was committed by any of the officers’ prior to the evidence being tossed out the window.” 399 F.2d 62 , 64 (5th Cir. 1968) (citations omitted). See also Hobson v. United States, 226 F.2d 890, 894 (8th Cir. 1955). (Footnote omitted). Commonwealth v. Jeffries, 454 Pa. 320, 326 , 311 A.2d 914, 918 (1973).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.