Commonwealth v. Van Bell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 31 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The evidence readily established that the defendant had the requisite intent to commit the crime of attempted rape. It also established that at the time of his arrest, he had moved beyond the mere preparation phase of the crime (identifying a supplier and negotiating the price and the sex acts for which the child was sought) and was on his way to a nearby location to commit the crime. These are sufficient acts toward the commission of the crime to satisfy the requirements of our attempt statute, G. L. c. 274, § 6, and come near enough to the accomplishment of the substantive offense to be punishable.””

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