Commonwealth v. Carter’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is important to articulate what this case is not about. It is not about a person seeking to ameliorate the anguish of someone coping with a terminal illness and questioning the value of life. Nor is it about a person offering support, comfort, and even assistance to a mature adult who, confronted with such circumstances, has decided to end his or her life. These situations are easily distinguishable from the present case, in which the grand jury heard evidence suggesting a systematic campaign of coercion on which the virtually present defendant embarked -- captured and preserved through her text messages -- that targeted the equivocating young victim's insecurities and acted to subvert his willpower in favor of her own.”

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

2. “"Whether conduct is wanton or reckless is 'determined based either on the defendant's specific knowledge or on what a reasonable person should have known in the circumstances.... If based on the objective measure of recklessness, the defendant's actions constitute wanton or reckless conduct ... if an * ordinary normal [person] under the same circumstances would have realized the gravity of the danger. ... If based on the subjective measure, i.e., the defendant's own knowledge, grave danger to others must have been apparent and the defendant must have chosen to run the risk rather than alter [his or her] conduct so as to avoid the act or omission which caused the harm' (quotations and citation omitted)."”

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

3. “alleged to have committed an offense ... involv[ing] the infliction or threat of serious bodily harm " (emphasis added). G. L. c. 119, § 54. By its terms, the statute requires that the offense involve the infliction of serious bodily harm, not that the defendant herself be the one who directly inflicted it. If we were to interpret the statute to include such a requirement, it is difficult to see how a juvenile could be indicted as a youthful offender for, say, hiring a third party to carry out an attack on a victim. It is enough, as we said in Carter I , that "involuntary manslaughter in these circumstances inherently involves the infliction of serious bodily harm.”

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