Commonwealth v. Slaughter’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
134 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 136 later decisions — most recently November 2016 · most notably 38 Cal. 3d 658 - People v. Memro (1985), Commonwealth v. Gravely (1979)
134 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 Wong Sun v. United States · Simmons v. United States · Neil v. Biggers · Davis v. Alaska · Commonwealth v. Blair
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 136 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the manner in which the pretrial identification was conducted; (2) the witness’ prior opportunity to observe the alleged criminal act; (3) the existence of any discrepancies between the defendant’s actual description and any description given by the witness before the photographic identification; (4) any previous identification by the witness of some other person; (5) any previous identification of the defendant himself; (6) failure to identify the defendant on a prior occasion; and (7) the lapse of time between the alleged act and the out-of-court identification.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage“... the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation, (citing Commonwealth v. Slaughter, 482 Pa. 538, 546 , 394 A.2d 453, 457 (1978))”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“(The record does not even indicate whether or not Ragland, in fact, had a record of juvenile offenses, let alone whether that record, if it exists, would support appellant's claim of bias.) We therefore remand the matter to the trial court with instructions that appellant, through his counsel, be given access to Ragland's juvenile record. Counsel will then be able to argue to the trial court what, if any, use could have been made of that record had he been allowed to use it to cross-examine Ragland. If, in the court's opinion, its original refusal to allow defense counsel to cross-examine Ragland on the basis of this juvenile record prevented appellant from presenting to the jury evidence regarding Ragland's possible bias, or other information which would bring the case within the requirements of Davis, supra, it shall vacate the judgment of sentence and order a new trial. If, on the other hand, Ragland has no juvenile record, or if in the court's opinion, appellant has failed to assert any facts which would bring the case within the rationale of Davis, supra, it shall affirm its original order. Either party may then file an appropriate appeal.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.