Commonwealth v. Wallace’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

60 state decisions

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 64 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The major focus of the defense was upon the credibility of the Commonwealth’s “star” witness, Olen Clay Gorby. (Indeed, no other defense was offered.) Had the jury been completely apprised of Gorby’s cooperation and undercover activities with law-enforcement agencies, his three month release from the Washington County Jail while working as an undercover agent for the federal authorities, the fact that he had shot at the owner and his son at the Village Green golf course, the fact that he had not pled guilty to eleven counts of burglary which were hanging over his head, and his entire criminal record, the jury could easily and legitimately have inferred that Mr. Gorby was less motivated by truth or by altruistic motives of truth and sympathy for the homicide victims than by a sincere desire to do “whatever-it-takes ” to secure an early release and lenient sentences for his nefarious and numerous crimes.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Moose

2. “`when the reliability of a given witness may well be determinative of guilt or innocence, nondisclosure [on the part of the Commonwealth] of evidence affecting credibility' violates due process.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Elliott