Commonwealth v. Manning’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently November 2007 · most notably Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer (1982), Commonwealth v. Frey (1984)
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 United States v. Peltier · Hill v. United States · Commonwealth v. Jones · Commonwealth v. Hilliard · Commonwealth v. Cain
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“would have been acceptable under the law prior to this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Jones, 457 Pa. 563 , 319 A.2d 142 , cert. den., 419 U.S. 1000 , 95 S.Ct. 316 , 42 L.Ed.2d 274 (1974), and the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States ex rel. Matthews v. Johnson, 503 F.2d 339 (3rd Cir.1974), cert. denied sub nom Cuyler v. Matthews, 420 U.S. 952 , 95 S.Ct. 1336 , 43 L.Ed.2d 430 (1975). Both of these cases hold, in essence, that a trial judge has or should have no discretion to deny a defendant charged with criminal homicide a requested charge on voluntary manslaughter. See also Commonwealth v. Cain, 471 Pa. 140 , 369 A.2d 1234 (opinions in support of affirmance); Commonwealth v. Hilliard, 471 Pa. 318 , 370 A.2d 322 (1977). From the premise that a defendant charged with murder has a clear right to receive such an instruction on request, whatever the nature of the evidence presented or of his defense, it follows that he has an unconditional right on request to an instruction on the complete statutory definition of the offense of voluntary manslaughter. (Italics supplied)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““(a) General rule. — A person who kills an individual without lawful justification commits voluntary manslaughter if at the time of the killing he is acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation by: (1) the individual killed; or (2) another whom the actor endeavors to kill, but he negligently or accidentally causes the death of the individual killed.””
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.