Commonwealth v. Rosa’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 15 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “before evidence of a call may be used against a defendant at trial, the government must establish that the monitoring of that particular call was justified as advancing such a legitimate purpose.... [T]his concept would be antithetical to the prophylactic purpose of the regulation, because it is at best difficult (and more likely impossible) to identify in advance specific telephone calls that may raise safety and security issues.”

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

2. “The weighing of probative value versus prejudicial effect of evidence in the context of a trial is an issue left particularly to the discretion of the trial judge.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1113 - Commonwealth v. Barila

3. “An error is nonprejudicial only [i]f . . . the conviction is sure that the error did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. COMMONWEALTH v. MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ.