Commonwealth v. Ward’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
31 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently January 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. Hude (1983), 331 Pa. Super. 307 - Commonwealth v. Smalis (1984)
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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2113
Relies on North Carolina v. Pearce · North Carolina v. Alford · Brady v. United States · Green v. United States · Bordenkircher v. Hayes
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hen a defendant withdraws or successfully challenges his plea, the bargain is abrogated and he must be prepared to accept all of the consequences which the plea originally sought to avoid.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he defendant at bar was not, in the proceedings in which his guilty plea [to simple robbery] was accepted, in direct peril of being convicted and punished for [armed robbery]. He was not forced to “run the gauntlet” on that charge. No trier of fact refused to convict him on that charge and none was given the choice between finding him guilty on either that charge or on [simple robbery]. The prosecutor and the judge had the sole options of accepting or rejecting the plea on the lesser charge. By accepting it, no determination was made, explicit or implicit, on the merits of the charge not embraced in the plea. There was no implicit acquittal. A plea to a lesser charge necessarily deprives the court of an opportunity to consider the greater charge.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Lewis v. Warner““While confronting a defendant with the risk of more severe punishment clearly may have a ‘discouraging effect on the defendant’s assertion of his trial rights, the imposition of these difficult choices [is] an inevitable’ — and permissible — ‘attribute of any legitimate system which tolerates and encourages the negotiation of pleas.’ Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, supra, [ 412 U.S. 17 ] at 31. It follows that, by tolerating and encouraging the negotiation of pleas, this Court has necessarily accepted as constitutionally legitimate the simple reality that the prosecutor’s interest at the bargaining table is to persuade the defendant to forgo his right to plead not guilty.” 434 U.S. at 364 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Burkett
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.