Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
85 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 85 later decisions — most recently August 2012 · most notably Commonwealth v. Harper (1979), Commonwealth v. Hudson (1980)
85 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. Perkins · Commonwealth v. Johnston · Commonwealth v. Robinson · Commonwealth v. Hinchcliffe · Commonwealth v. London
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 85 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““To establish self-defense, the following elements must be shown: (1) the slayer must have been free from fault in provoking or continuing the difficulty which resulted in the killing; (2) the slayer must have reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death, great bodily harm or some felony, and that there was a necessity to kill in order to save himself therefrom; and, (3) the slayer must not have violated any duty to retreat or avoid the danger. Commonwealth v. Lowe, 460 Pa. 357 , 333 A.2d 765 (1975); Commonwealth v. Johnston, 438 Pa. 485 , 263 A.2d 376 (1970).””
2 later decisions 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.