Commonwealth v. Terry’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 57 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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “`It is a fundamental precept of the common law that the prosecution may not introduce evidence of the defendant's prior criminal conduct as substantive evidence of his guilt of the present charge. It has been succinctly stated that the purpose of this rule is to prevent the conviction of an accused for one crime by the use of evidence that he has committed other unrelated crimes, and to preclude the inference that because he has committed other crimes he was more likely to commit the crime for which he is being tried. The presumed effect of such evidence is to predispose the minds of the jurors to believe the accused guilty, and thus effectually to strip him of the presumption of innocence' . . . .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Styles · Commonwealth v. Brown

2. “stress[ed] that written post-verdict motions filed subsequent to our decision in Commonwealth v. Blair, 460 Pa. 31 , 331 A.2d 213 (1975), will be conclusive on the issues to be considered by the Court en banc and reviewable by appellate tribunals.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Twiggs · Commonwealth v. Waters