Commonwealth v. Hall’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
98 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 104 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Franks v. Delaware (1978), North Carolina v. Wrenn (1974)
98 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 Mapp v. Ohio · Aguilar v. Texas · Spinelli v. United States · McCray v. State of Illinois · Illinois Power Co. v. Local Union No. 51, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he allegation of “5 arrests and 3 convictions” resulting from an unnamed informant’s earlier information is an assertion that is impossible for a defendant to explore prior to the suppression hearing, and is clearly a proper subject for inquiry there. . . . Indeed, the only existing method to effectively probe the veracity of the assertion is to allow a defendant meaningful cross-examination of the police officer-affiant at the suppression hearing. . . . It must be concluded that appellant at the suppression hearing should have been afforded the opportunity through “the traditional safeguard” of cross-examination, to test the truthfulness of the recitals in the warrant alleging the informant’s previous reliability.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The Commonwealth’s position, reduced to its essence, is that while appellant may have the right to challenge the veracity of facts recited in a warrant, he may not do so without first showing the potential falsity of those facts. We must reject such an unduly restrictive interpretation of Commonwealth v. D’Angelo, supra. Such an inter pretation would virtually emasculate the teaching of D’Angelo that facts supporting a warrant may be shown to be false or misleading.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The purpose of the question was to explore the veracity of the facts recited in the affidavit supporting the warrant. Counsel expressly disavowed any intention of ascertaining the identity of the informant, and, to further protect the informant’s anonymity, offered to conduct the cross-examination in camera.” Id., 451 Pa. at 203-04 , 302 A.2d at 343 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).”
2 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.