Commonwealth v. Mulgrew’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 70 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 75 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2012 · most notably Shannon v. United States (1994), State v. Shickles (1988)
3 federal appellate · 70 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 International Ass'n of Machinists v. Duckworth · Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America v. Harrington · Commonwealth v. Paquette · Lyles v. United States · Commonwealth v. Rose
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 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The issue of insanity having been fairly raised, the jury may return one of three verdicts, guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity. Jurors, in common with people in general, are aware of the meanings of verdicts of guilty and not guilty.. .. But a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity has no such commonly understood meaning. ... It means neither freedom nor punishment. It means the accused will be confined in a hospital for the mentally ill until the superintendent of such hospital certifies, and the court is satisfied, that such person has recovered his sanity and will not in the reasonable future be dangerous to himself or others. We think the jury has a right to know the meaning of this possible verdict as accurately as it knows by common knowledge the meaning of the other two possible verdicts.” (Emphasis added.)”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“when insanity is raised as a possible defense to criminal charges, a jury must be instructed concerning the possible psychiatric treatment and commitment of the defendant after the return of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) Whenever any person charged with any crime is acquitted on the ground of insanity or having been insane at the time he committed the crime, the jury or the court as the case may be, shall state such reason for acquittal in its verdict. (b) In such event, the court may direct the Attorney for the Commonwealth to act as petitioner to initiate commitment proceedings under section 406.”
2 later decisions 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.