Commonwealth v. McKenna’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 101 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 142 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2019 · most notably Whitmore v. Arkansas (1990), Smith v. Murray (1986)
20 federal appellate · 101 state decisions — followed in 11 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 Boykin v. Alabama · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Woodson v. North Carolina · Dobbert v. Florida
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 142 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““. . . It is evident from the record that Gerard McKenna personally prefers death to spending the remainder of his life in prison. While this may be a genuine conviction on his part, the waiver concept was never intended as a means of allowing a criminal defendant to choose his own sentence. Especially is this so where, as here, to do so would result in state aided suicide. The waiver rule cannot be exalted to a position so lofty as to require this Court to blind itself to the real issue — -the propriety of allowing the state to conduct an illegal execution of a citizen.””
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he waiver concept was never intended as a means of allowing a criminal defendant to choose his own sentence. Especially is this so where, as here, to do so would result in state aided suicide. The waiver rule cannot be exalted to a position so lofty as to require this court to blind itself to the real issue — the propriety of allowing the state to conduct an illegal execution of a citizen. [Footnote omitted.] In short, where an overwhelming public interest is involved, but is not addressed by the parties, this Court has a duty to transcend procedural rules which are not, in spirit, applicable, to the end that the public interest may be vindicated. Such an overwhelming public interest — insuring that capital punishment in this Commonwealth comports with the Constitution of the United States — is present here. (Emphasis added.)”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Implicit in this concept is another cardinal rule of appellate jurisprudence in this state, viz., an appellate court is not to raise sua sponte issues which it perceives in the record where, as here, those issues are not presented at the appeal level.”
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.