Commonwealth v. Walzack’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 143 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 159 later decisions — most recently February 2026 · most notably Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer (1982), Commonwealth v. Story (1978)
5 federal appellate · 143 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 In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Mullaney v. Wilbur · Page v. Work · 60 Cal. 2d 482 - People v. Henderson · North Carolina Natural Gas Corp. v. McJunkin Corp.
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 159 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“An accused offering evidence under the theory of diminished capacity concedes general criminal liability. The thrust of this doctrine is to challenge the capacity of the actor to possess a particular state of mind required by the legislature for the commission of a certain degree of the crime charged.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“. . . [d]oes the evidence offered render the desired inference more probable than it would be without the evidence? . . . Relevant evidence then, is evidence that in some degree advances the inquiry, and thus has probative value, it is prima facie admissible.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration of, or attempting to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, or kidnapping, shall be murder in the first degree. All other kinds of murder shall be murder in the second degree. . . . ” Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 872, § 701; December 1, 1959, P.L. 1621, § 1.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.