Pennington v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ * * * After jurors or prospective jurors in a capital case have been accepted and until the trial is over they are to be kept together and separate from outside influence, except as otherwise provided. This does not mean, however, that if one of them is for some reason eliminated after being sequestered with the others he must be regarded as having been an outsider. Until Mrs. Melton was released by the trial court she was just as much a juror or prospective juror as were the others. She had been accepted by both sides. The situation that developed thereafter was the same as if she had become ill, or had died, or had been excused for some other good cause. She did not become, retroactively, a ‘stranger.’ ””

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