Commonwealth v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently October 2000 · most notably Commonwealth v. Story (1978), Commonwealth v. Gee (1976)
35 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 · Comfort v. California · Commonwealth v. Kravitz · Commonwealth v. Meyers
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he exercise of the court’s discretion in granting a request to cross-examine one’s own witness should include a consideration as to: (a) whether the testimony was unexpected; (b) whether the testimony was contradictory (c) whether the testimony was harmful or injurious to the party calling the witness and beneficial to the opposing side; and (d) whether the scope of cross-examination was excessive.”
5 later decisions 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.