Commonwealth v. James’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
99 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 99 later decisions — most recently December 2023 · most notably Commonwealth v. Dugger (1985), Commonwealth v. Cortez (1985)
99 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 Neil v. Biggers · Commonwealth v. Bosurgi · Commonwealth v. Hamlin · In Re Alpine · Commonwealth v. Slaughter
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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation, (citing Commonwealth v. Slaughter, 482 Pa. 538, 546 , 394 A.2d 453, 457 (1978))”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“Here the Commonwealth is appealing the decision of the suppression court. Accordingly, they should be required to meet the same burden as a defendant who has lost below. Thus, where the Commonwealth is appealing the adverse decision of a suppression court, a reviewing court must consider only the evidence of the defendant’s witnesses and so much of the evidence for the prosecution as read in the context of the record as a whole remains uncontradicted. To hold otherwise would make a mock ery of the suppression court and place an impossible burden on every defendant regardless of his success or failure at the suppression hearing:”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“... the practical effects of an order granting the suppression of evidence give to the order such an attribute of finality as to justify the grant of the right of appeal to the Commonwealth____”
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.