Commonwealth v. Reiff’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 31 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions — most recently January 2019 · most notably Commonwealth v. Tilley (1991), Commonwealth v. Breakiron (1990)
2 federal appellate · 31 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. Kichline · Commonwealth v. Tervalon · Commonwealth v. Black
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Drinking and intoxication are not synonymous terms; therefore a jury instruction on intoxication is not warranted because evidence of drinking is introduced at trial. It is the intention of the legislature that a defendant be overwhelmed or overpowered by alcoholic liquor to the point of losing his or her faculties or sensibilities before an intoxication instruction be given. Rieff supra., 489 Pa. at 15 , 413 A.2d 672 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) the slayer was free from fault in provoking or continuing the difficulty which resulted in the slaying; (b) that the slayer must have reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and that there was a necessity to use such force to save himself therefrom; and (c) the slayer did not violate any duty to retreat or to avoid the danger.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“except that evidence of such intoxication or drugged condition of the defendant may be offered by the defendant whenever it is relevant to reduce murder from a higher degree to a lower degree of murder.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Carpenter v. Vaughn
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.