Commonwealth v. Sullivan’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 332 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 343 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2017 · most notably Cuyler v. Sullivan (1980), Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer (1982)
3 federal appellate · 332 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Brady v. State of Maryland · Commonwealth Ex Rel. Washington v. Maroney · Commonwealth v. Dancer · Ogletree v. Ohio · Commonwealth v. Stoltzfus
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 343 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“need not be absolutely incompatible with [the] defendant's innocence, but the question of any doubt is for the jury unless the evidence `be so weak and inconclusive that as a matter of law no probability of fact can be drawn from the combined circumstances.'”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage““The findings of the PCHA court, which hears the evidence and passes on the credibility of the witnesses, should be given great deference. See Commonwealth v. Smith, 454 Pa. 256 , 312 A.2d 396 (1973); Commonwealth v. Minnick, 432 Pa. 462 , 247 A.2d 569 (1968). Consequently, this Court will not disturb its findings if they are supported in the PCHA record. See Commonwealth v. Hauser, 450 Pa. 388 , 299 A.2d 218 (1973); Commonwealth v. Tabb, 433 Pa. 204 , 249 A.2d 546 (1968); Commonwealth v. Minnick, supra. This is true even when the record could support a contrary holding. See Commonwealth v. Hauser, supra.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“his stewardship was in no way affected by the consideration of the co-defendant's cases but was solely a product of what he considered to be the best course in his representation of Sullivan.”
3 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.