Commonwealth v. McCants’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably Commonwealth v. Simmons (1973), Commonwealth v. Jones (1984)
35 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 Aguilar v. Texas · Draper v. United States · Commonwealth v. Shaw
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There are times when the facts and circumstances presented to the magistrate remain unchanged long after the warrant is issued. However, once it is recognized that it is possible for the facts and circumstances to change with the passing of time, a redetermination of probable cause is constitutionally required.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[52] The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania agreed, stating as follows: [T]he facts and circumstances justifying a determination that probable cause exists may quickly change.... Therefore, when there is an unreasonable lapse of time after a search warrant has been issued and not yet used for a search, it is mandatory that the police return to the issuing authority for a redetermination of probable cause. If this is not done, it is the police who are making the determination that probable cause still exists, and not a”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Maddox“A search warrant must issue, if at all, upon an existing cause. A search warrant is no general aim for ferreting out crime, but a special proceeding, based on present cause, hedged by tacit constitutional provisions, which must be speedily executed.”
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.