Commonwealth v. Goldsmith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

56 state decisions

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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In order to ensure a defendant’s right to meaningful appellate review, this Court requires that he or she be furnished a full transcript or other equivalent picture of the trial proceedings. With this in mind, it is settled law that in order for a defendant to establish entitlement to relief based on the incompleteness of the trial record, he must first make some potentially meritorious challenge which cannot be adequately reviewed due to the deficiency in the [record].”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2003 Pa. Super. 125 - Commonwealth v. Paxton · 717 So. 2d 314 - Watts v. State

2. ““As correctly noted in the Court’s opinion, appellant has not been deprived of a transcript through any fault of the Commonwealth. Rather, the untimely illness of the court reporter immediately following trial, his subsequent death, and the inability of any other reporter to read his shorthand notes combined to limit the transcription to only 309 pages of testimony from the five-day trial. The Supreme Court of the United States, faced with a similar situation arising in an Illinois trial, i. e. unavailability of the trial transcript due to the death of the court reporter, held that Due Process and Equal Protection did not require the state to afford the defendant a new trial. Norvell v. Illinois, 373 U.S. 420 , 83 S.Ct. 1366 , 10 L.Ed.2d 456 (1963). That case, in my view, is controlling here. Said the Supreme Court: ‘When through no fault of the State, transcripts of criminal trials are no longer available because of the death of the court reporter some practical accommodation must be made. . . . “The problems of government are practical ones and may justify, if they do not require, rough accommodations — illogical, it may be, and unscientific. . . . What is best is not always discernible; the wisdom of any choice may be disputed or condemned.” The “rough accommodations” made by government do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment unless the lines drawn are “hostile or invidious.” ’ Id. at 424 ; 10 L.Ed.2d at 459 .” * * * * * * “It is not unwarran”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Shields

3. “meaningful appellate review is impossible absent a full transcript or an equivalent picture of the trial proceedings.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 717 So. 2d 314 - Watts v. State