Commonwealth v. Harkins’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently April 2011 · most notably Commonwealth v. Story (1978), Commonwealth v. Fortune (1975)
2 federal appellate · 32 state decisions
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 Chapman v. State of California · Schneble v. Florida · Thomas Patterson v. People of the State of Colorado Ex Rel Attorney General of the State of Colorado · United States v. Wood · Comfort v. California
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The only arguments raised by the prosecution in this appeal concern the issue of harmless error. Initially, we must reject the prosecution’s contention that it should not be required to establish that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and under Article I, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, P.S., the appellant was entitled to a trial by an impartial jury. Since these rights were violated, the prosecution had the burden of proving that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 , 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 , reh. den. 386 U.S. 987 , 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967); Commonwealth v. Pearson, 427 Pa. 45 , 233 A.2d 552 (1967); Cf. Commonwealth v. Padgett, 428 Pa. 229 , 237 A.2d 209 (1968). The prosecution has failed to establish that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Error cannot be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt if there is a reasonable possibility that the information received by the jury contributed to the conviction. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 , 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 , reh. den. 386 U.S. 987 , 87 S.Ct. 824 , 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427 , 92 S.Ct. 1056 , 31 L.Ed.2d 340 (1972). When the jury learns that the person being tried has previously committed another crime, the prejudicial impact cannot be considered insignificant. “The presumed effect of such evidence is to predispose the mi”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“panel of impartial and `indifferent' jurors”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.