Commonwealth v. Leng’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 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. “special deference to factual determinations made by [the] motion judge who also was the trial judge.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Brown · Commonwealth v. Goitia

2. “Where the appeal from the denial of a motion for a new trial is considered with the direct appeal from a conviction of a capital crime, we review the denial of that motion to determine if the judge committed an abuse of discretion or other error of law and, if so, whether such error created a substantial likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.”

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

3. “judge was not required to accept as true the assertions in the defendant's affidavit. She could evaluate it in light of such factors as bias and self-interest and reject the affidavit as not credible”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. COMMONWEALTH v. STEVEN C. MILLER.