Commonwealth v. Thompson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Thus, the first deficiency in this colloquy is that the judge failed to have elicited from appellant the facts he was admitting in pleading guilty. From this colloquy it is not clear that any criminal liability should attach. Murder requires more than the mere act of killing, it is essential that the killing be accompanied by malice. Commonwealth v. Taylor, 461 Pa. 557 , 337 A.2d 545 (1975); Commonwealth v. Boyd, 461 Pa. 17 , 334 A.2d 610 (1975); Commonwealth v. Coleman, 455 Pa. 508 , 318 A.2d 716 (1974); Commonwealth v. McFadden, 448 Pa. 277 , 292 A.2d 324 (1972). When the judge accepted the plea of guilt, she was only certain that appellant admitted causing the death of the victim. There was, however, absolutely no basis to make any determination as to whether he was admitting a malicious killing. “ ‘Because a guilty plea is an admission of all the elements of a formal criminal charge, it cannot be truly voluntary unless the defendant possesses an understanding of the law in relation to the facts.’ ” Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 243, n. 5 , 89 S.Ct. 1709, 1712 , 23 L.Ed.2d 274, n. 5 (1969), quoting McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 466 , 89 S.Ct. 1166, 1171 , 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969).” (Footnote omitted.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. LaSane