Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently July 2016 · most notably Commonwealth v. Duncan (1987), Commonwealth v. Brinkley (1984)
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. Futch · Commonwealth v. Williams · Commonwealth v. Riggins · Commonwealth v. Schmidt · Commonwealth v. Blagman
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.
“Appellant next claims the trial court erred in not granting a mistrial when the Commonwealth's witness made references to the appellant's willingness to take a polygraph examination. We agree with the trial court's decision. The prosecutor, at trial, during direct examination of the detective who interrogated the appellant at the Police Administration Building, asked the witness to give a chronological narrative of the interrogation. When the testimony reached the point at which appellant had made the incriminating statement, admitting participation in the crime and denying he shot Officer Daniels, the witness was requested to read the statement into the record. The challenged reference to the polygraph examination was part of this statement and came on the seventh and last page of the statement. Defense counsel did not move for a mistrial at that time. He waited approximately two or three minutes, until the prosecutor finished direct examination and the court called a recess before making the motion for mistrial. Pa.R.Crim.P. 1118(b) [ 4 ] provides: "When an event prejudicial to the defendant occurs during trial, only the defendant may move for a mistrial; the motion shall be made when the event is disclosed. Otherwise, the trial judge may declare a mistrial only for reasons of manifest necessity." (emphasis added). See Commonwealth v. Riggins, 478 Pa. 222 , 386 A.2d 520 (1978). Since the challenged testimony came in the context of a recital of the contents of the defendant'”
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.