Commonwealth v. Gonzalez’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently April 2022 · most notably Commonwealth v. Sylvia (2010), McNeal v. State (2012)
36 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 Jackson v. Virginia · Commonwealth v. Latimore · Harris v. Rivera · Morris v. Gressette · Shell v. State
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A factually inconsistent verdict is distinct from the legally inconsistent verdict that arises when there exists no set of facts that the government could have proved in the particular case that would have resulted in the verdict at issue. See Commonwealth v. Walker, 442 Mass. 185, 203 (2004), quoting Commonwealth v. Elliffe, [ 47 Mass. App. Ct. 580, 584 (1999)] (‘A defendant is entitled to relief “only where verdicts are legally inconsistent — i.e., where, removed from the factual context of the particular case, the government could not possibly have proved the elements of both crimes with respect to the defendant” ’); Commonwealth v. Nascimento, 421 Mass. 677, 683 (1996) (inconsistent in law for defendant to be convicted both of stealing property and of receiving same property). Such legally inconsistent verdicts cannot be sustained, even when they are rendered by a jury.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[B]ecause the judge's verdict did not reveal whether he relied on the theory of joint venture or constructive possession, the evidence must be sufficient to support both theories.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Our rule is well settled that, in cases tried before a jury, mere inconsistency in verdicts, one of which is an acquittal, will not render the verdict of guilty erroneous”
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.