Commonwealth v. Cassidy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “as he had purchased them in 2008 or 2009; had fired the two firearms; was familiar with firearms in general, as he had owned other firearms in the past and hunted with firearms since age eight; had knowledge of the nine millimeter pistol's capacity, as he had indicated that he did not fully load the magazine to avoid wearing out the spring; and could see that the magazines were”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Resende · 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1115 - Commonwealth v. Cintron

2. “to sustain a conviction [of unlawfully possessing a large capacity feeding device], the Commonwealth must prove that [the] defendant either knew the ... feeding device met the legal definition of 'large capacity' or knew it was capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Resende · 94 Mass. App. Ct. 1115 - Commonwealth v. Cintron

3. “[w]e will not adopt [even] a literal construction of a statute if the consequences of such construction are absurd or unreasonable”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Brown · Commonwealth v. Gomes