Commonwealth v. Rolison’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently September 2003 · most notably Commonwealth v. Buehl (1986), Commonwealth v. Delbridge (2003)
2 federal appellate · 48 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 Sheppard v. Maxwell · Estes v. Texas · Murphy v. Florida · Rideau v. Louisiana · Commonwealth v. Clair
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“THE COURT: I know your name is Joe McGraw; but I really don’t. I surmise it. You have always been known to me by that name; but I really don’t know that is your name if you want to be strict about it. And we went through this thing a day ago of trying to take a word that in the ordinary use of the English language the ordinary person uses one meaning, and then you try to twist it around to a specific, narrow meaning, and try to make somebody untruthful in doing it; and this is not kosher. I blew my stack that day, and I will be doing it if you persist in this technique. MR. McGRAW: Your Honor, the only thing, time is very, very loose— THE COURT: I know what the man says, how he arrives; and then repeating, and repeating does not change the situation one iota. MR. McGRAW: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURT: Now, let us try the case; and instead of trying to play games with semantics—”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““On pretrial application for change of venue, we must first determine if potentially prejudicial material was in fact disseminated. In Commonwealth v. Frazier, 471 Pa. 121 , 369 A.2d 1224 [1977], this court defined three types of inherently prejudicial material: “1. References to a defendant’s prior criminal record. Commonwealth v. Pierce, 451 Pa. 190 , 303 A.2d 209 (1973). “2. References to information received from police that a defendant had confessed. Commonwealth v. Pierce, supra. “3. Reports that go beyond objective reporting and become emotional and inflammatory. Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 , 86 S.Ct. 1507 , 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966).” Rolison, supra, 473 Pa. at 268 , 374 A.2d at 512 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.