Commonwealth v. Chacko’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently November 2013 · most notably Commonwealth v. Chester (1991), 165 W. Va. 588 - State v. Clawson (1980)
29 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 Commonwealth v. Petrakovich · Commonwealth v. Williams · Commonwealth v. Powell · Commonwealth v. Martinez · Commonwealth v. Scaramuzzino
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Having found the photographs to be inflammatory, we must next determine whether they were of essential evidentiary value to the prosecution’s case. Commonwealth v. Schroth, supra at _, 388 A.2d at 1036; Commonwealth v. Ross, 452 Pa. 500, 506 , 307 A.2d 898, 901 (1973) (photographs essential to rebut claim of self-defense). ... The Commonwealth proceeded upon the theory of felony murder, charging robbery as the underlying felony. At trial, the coroner, who examined the victim’s body at the crime scene, testified extensively as to the condition of the victim’s body and the nature of the wounds. Following the coroner’s testimony, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy testified as to similar matters and stated that death was caused by knife and bullet wounds. Thus, there was an abundance of expert testimony going to prove the element of death due to a criminal agency. See Commonwealth v. Williams, 476 Pa. 557, 563-566 , 383 A.2d 503, 506-508 (1978). There is no indication that the photographs were necessary to supplement the otherwise specific testimony of the coroner and the pathologist. ... “In the instant case the photographic evidence was at best cumulative but certainly not essential. ...””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“involves weighing the necessarily inflammatory nature of this evidence against its `essential evidentiary value.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.