Commonwealth v. Bowden’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
79 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 85 later decisions — most recently June 2019 · most notably Commonwealth v. O'SEARO (1976), 35 Cal. 3d 824 - People v. Burroughs (1984)
79 state decisions — followed in 11 states
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 People v. Phillips · 6 Cal. 3d 28 - People v. Satchell · People v. Williams · Commonwealth v. Malone · People v. Pavlic
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 85 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When an individual commits an act of gross recklessness for which he must reasonably anticipate that death to another is likely to result, he exhibits that `wickedness of disposition; hardness of heart; cruelty; recklessness of consequences and a mind regardless of social duty' which proved that there was at that time in him `that state or frame of mind termed malice'.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“"An injection of heroin into the body of a user of narcotics in a dosage consistent with his prior habit does not represent the serious threat of death or grave bodily harm that would allow a court to conclude that the framing of an intention to perform these acts exhibited the characteristics which would be comparable to the legal malice required for murder."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[n]otwithstanding the fact that the statute has declared [the offense] to be a felony, it is an act not in itself directly and naturally dangerous to life.”
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.