Commonwealth v. Farquharson’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
304 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 305 later decisions — most recently July 2025 · most notably Commonwealth v. Widmer (2000), Commonwealth v. Sullivan (1977)
304 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 General Protective Committee v. Securities & Exchange Commission · Commonwealth v. Paquette · Commonwealth v. Garvin · Leyvas v. United States · Commonwealth v. Garrett
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 305 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[tjhis concept ... must be distinguished from an equally fundamental principle that a verdict of guilt may not be based on surmise or conjecture,” and, citing Bennett , noted that”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage““Traditionally under our system of jurisprudence, issues of credibility are left to the trier of fact for resolution. . . While there may be some legitimacy for a trial court, who has also observed the witnesses as they testified, to consider the weight of the evidence and to that extent review the jury’s determination of credibility, there is surely no justification for an appellate court, relying solely upon a cold record, to exercise such a function. (Emphasis added, citation omitted).”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Under this exception the necessity for the presence of a startling occurrence or accident to serve as a source of reliability is not required. The truthfulness of the utterance is dependent upon its spontaneity. It must be certain from the circumstances that the utterance is a reflex product of immediate sensual impressions, unaided by retrospective mental processes. Restated, the utterance must be `instinctive, rather than deliberate.'"”
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.