Commonwealth v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We disagree with those jurisdictions in which it is held that the prosecution may with impunity call before the jury a witness likely to be associated with the defendant in the minds of the jurors, knowing that a privilege against self-incrimination will be claimed and yet believing that the claim of privilege will be legally invalid. It is a simple matter for the prosecuting attorney to inform the court that a witness he intends to call will, to his knowledge, attempt to invoke a privilege against testifying, and obtain a ruling thereon. We note that such a procedure is proposed by the American Bar Association’s Project on Standards for Criminal Justice: “A prosecutor should not call a witness who he knows will claim a privilege not to testify, for the purpose of impressing upon the jury the fact of the claim of privilege. In some instances, as defined in the Code of Professional Responsibility, doing so will constitute unprofessional conduct.” ABA, Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function and the Defense Function § 5.7(c), at 122-23. In a comment to this section, the Project pointed out that “if the prosecutor is informed in advance that the witness will claim a privilege and he wishes to contest the claim, the matter should be treated without the presence of the jury and a ruling obtained.” Id. at 125.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Virtu