Commonwealth v. Wade’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “"(1) that the evidence or biological material exists; "(2) that the evidence or biological material has been subject to a chain of custody that is sufficient to establish that it has not deteriorated, been substituted, tampered with, replaced, handled or altered such that the results of the requested analysis would lack any probative value; "(3) that the evidence or biological material has not been subjected to the requested analysis for any of the reasons in [§ 3 (b) (5) (i)-(v) ]; "(4) that the requested analysis has the potential to result in evidence that is material to the moving party's identification as the perpetrator of the crime in the underlying case; "(5) that the purpose of the motion is not the obstruction of justice or delay; and "(6) that the results of the particular type of analysis being requested have been found to be admissible in courts of the commonwealth."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Williams · 33 Mass. L. Rptr. 658 - Commonwealth v. Powell

2. “to remedy the injustice of wrongful convictions of factually innocent persons by allowing access to analyses of biological material with newer forensic and scientific techniques.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Dist. Attorney for the N. Dist. v. Superior Court Dep't