Commonwealth v. DiPadova’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 2 district · 17 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “However, if the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant consumed drugs or alcohol knowing or having reason to know that the drugs or alcohol would activate a latent mental disease or intensify an active mental disease, causing her to lose the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or the substantial capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law, then you would be warranted in finding the defendant criminally responsible for a crime in which you find she knowingly participated. In deciding what the defendant had reason to know about the consequences of her consumption of drugs or alcohol, you should consider the question solely from the defendant's point of view, including her mental capacity and her past experience with drugs or alcohol.”

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

2. ““Conversely, where a defendant’s mental disease or defect, by itself, causes a lack of substantial capacity, the defendant’s consumption of alcohol or drugs does not lead to forfeiture of an otherwise valid defense of lack of criminal responsibility. This is true even where that consumption or intoxication may exacerbate or aggravate the symptoms of the mental condition, and even where the defendant knows such aggravation may result, so long as the defendant already lacked criminal responsibility absent the effects of the substances” (emphasis supplied).”

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

3. “"(1) if the defendant's mental illness did not reach the level of a lack of criminal responsibility until he consumed drugs, he was criminally responsible if he knew (or should have known) that the consumption would have the effect of intensifying or exacerbating his mental condition; and, in contrast, (2) if the defendant's mental illness did reach the level of lack of criminal responsibility even in the absence of his consumption of drugs, it was irrelevant whether he took drugs knowing that they would exacerbate that condition."”

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