Commonwealth v. Burton’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 84 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 96 later decisions — most recently June 2015 · most notably Commonwealth v. Chester (1991), Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal (1989)
4 federal appellate · 84 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 Ex Rel. Washington v. Maroney · Commonwealth v. Hubbard · California v. Arizona · Rogers v. Loether · 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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Even where the language of a prosecutor is “intemperate, uncalled for, and improper, a new trial is not required unless 'its unavoidable effect would be to prejudice the jury, forming in their minds fixed bias and hostility toward the defendant, so that they could not weigh the evidence and render a true verdict.’ ” Commonwealth v. Burton, 491 Pa. 13, 22 , 417 A.2d 611, 615 (1980), quoting, Commonwealth v. Stoltzfus, 462 Pa. 43, 61 , 337 A.2d 873, 882 (1975).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“very fairly and firmly so that justice may be done.”
1 later decision 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.