Commonwealth v. Ford’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
99 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 100 later decisions — most recently October 2015 · most notably Commonwealth v. Yount (1974), Commonwealth v. Hudson (1980)
99 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 Elam v. United States · Commonwealth v. Novak · Commonwealth v. Dickerson · Commonwealth v. Moore · Commonwealth v. Powell
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 100 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[PJositive testimony that the knife in question was actually the murder weapon is not required prior to introduction into evidence . . . If a proper foundation for the admission of the evidence has been laid, as here, then admission into evidence is permissible . . . The fact that the knife could not be positively identified affects the weight of such evidence, but not its admissibility . . ””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“wounds were caused by a knife with a seven to seven and one-half inch blade.” Id., at 857. However, the knife at trial was never positively identified as the one used, and the medical examiner was unable to link it to the crime. Id. We held the knife was admissible because there was a foundation to”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““. . . ‘[t]he length of the deliberation of a jury is wisely left to the sound discretion of the trial Judge, and we reverse only if we find . . . abuse of discretion, or that the verdict was the product of coercion or of an overworked and fatigued jury.’ ””
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.