Commonwealth v. Nichols’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
68 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 68 later decisions — most recently December 2009 · most notably Com. v. Washington (2007), Commonwealth v. Ragan (1994)
68 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 Giglio v. United States · Napue v. People of the State of Illinois · Palermo v. United States · Commonwealth v. Bighum · Commonwealth v. Coyle
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 68 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“where the testimony conveys to the jury, either expressly or by reasonable implication, the fact of a prior criminal offense.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Not all references which may indicate prior criminal activity require reversal. Mere passing references to criminal activity will not require reversal unless the record indicates that prejudice resulted from the reference.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the jury could reasonably have inferred that Nichols was involved in other unrelated crimes from the evidence relating to the . . . lineup, prejudice resulted, and a new trial must be granted.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Com. v. Washington
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.