Commonwealth v. Scott’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
108 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 108 later decisions — most recently July 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. Cabeza (1983), Commonwealth v. Albrecht (1998)
108 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 Michelson v. United States · Commonwealth v. Amos · Commonwealth v. Becker · Commonwealth v. Scott · Viliborghi v. State of Arizona
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 108 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Despite any cautionary instruction the court may have given the jury, the undue prejudice to appellant is obvious. On one hand, the jury would have heard that appellant had a reputation for being peaceful while on the other hand, the jury would also have heard that appellant had been arrested on two charges. Had appellant been convicted of the charges, it would be easier to say that he must suffer the consequences of placing his character at issue. But instantly, the arrests which would have been alluded to never resulted in convictions. Since an arrest is equally consistent with either guilt or innocence, the cases allowing such cross-examination are overruled.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The defendant did produce the testimony of two witnesses in his behalf. They were Dr. Percival Roberts and Harriet Hock. These witnesses who were called testified that they have known the defendant and that they were acquainted with others in the community who know the defendant, and accordingly, they are familiar with the defendant’s reputation in the community, and they told you that the defendant’s reputation in the community for honesty and integrity is good, and was good, and that there was nothing they heard which was detrimental to that. It is important that you understand how this type of evidence is to be treated by you as jurors. If a person has lived a good life and has earned a good reputation in the community among people who know him, the law permits him to avail himself to that reputation as evidence in support of his innocence, once he has been accused of a crime in criminal Court. Now, if the Commonwealth has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty to your satisfaction, even though he has had a good reputation, he is not to go free simply because of that reputation. However, evidence of good reputation is substantive evidence and is to be considered by you along with all of the other evidence in the case, and if, when all combined, creates a reasonable doubt, then you are to find the defendant not guilty. Reputation evidence is offered not simply to raise reasonable doubt, but to establish the innocence of the defendant, and if you conclu”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“My own preference and, I think, the only fair rule would be to foreclose the entire line of inquiry concerning specific incidents in the defendant’s past, both on cross-examination and on new evi-. dence in rebuttal. This would leave room for proper rebuttal without turning the defendant’s trial for a specific offense into one for all his previous misconduct, criminal or other, and would put the prosecution on the same plane with the defendant in relation to the use of character evidence.”
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.