Commonwealth v. Harper’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
26
cited by 26 later decisions
1
states following
October 1986
most recently cited
26 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Chapman v. State of California · Dusky v. United States · Commonwealth v. Clair · V. P. Serodino, Inc. 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or which shall be committed in the perpetration of, or attempting to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, or kidnapping, shall be murder in the first degree. All other kinds of murder shall be murder in the second degree. Act of June 24, 1939, P.L. 872, § 701, December 1, 1959, P.L. 1621, § 1.”
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.