Commonwealth v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 51 later decisions — most recently January 2024 · most notably Commonwealth v. Markman (2007), 433 Pa. Super. 432 - Commonwealth v. La (1994)
2 federal appellate · 47 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 Streeter v. United States · Commonwealth v. Rose · Commonwealth v. Black · Commonwealth v. Cropper · Commonwealth v. McComb
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 51 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[I]t must be shown that (a) the [actor] was free from fault in provoking or continuing the difficulty which resulted in the [injury]; (b) that the [actor] 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 [actor] did not violate any duty to retreat or to avoid the danger.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“‘While there is no burden on the defendant to prove a claim of self-defense, it is nevertheless required that before such a defense is properly in issue at trial, there must be some evidence, from whatever source, to justify such a finding.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[a] trial court may not refuse to charge the jury on the elements of a defense, where the defense is supported by evidence in the record. . . . Where there is evidence to support a claimed defense, it is `for the trier of fact to pass upon that evidence and improper for the trial judge to exclude such consideration by refusing the charge.'”
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.