Commonwealth v. Dugger’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 493 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 497 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Commonwealth v. Nester (1998), Commonwealth v. Boczkowski (2004)
2 federal appellate · 493 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 Mapp v. Ohio · Bell v. Wolfish · Commonwealth v. Bosurgi · Commonwealth v. James · 311 Pa. Super. 264 - Commonwealth v. Lapia
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 497 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“in and of itself precipitates and authorizes the appeal.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“From the point of view of the Commonwealth, two possible situations may arise: (a) the order of suppression will result in a termination and conclusion of the prosecution or (b) while the order of suppression will not result in a termination or conclusion of the prosecution, it will result in a prosecution wherein the Commonwealth is substantially handicapped because it cannot present all its available evidence. In the first situation, the element of finality inherent in the order of the suppression is apparent and sufficient to render the order appealable. In the second situation, although the element of finality in the order is not so apparent it is nevertheless present. Without a right of appeal in the Commonwealth in the second situation, the Commonwealth is completely deprived of any opportunity to secure an appellate court evaluation of the validity of the order of suppression which forces the Commonwealth to trial without all of its evidence. The evidence suppressed may well mark the difference between success and failure in the prosecution; to deny the Commonwealth its only opportunity of securing an appellate review to determine whether the evidence was properly suppressed is highly unfair to the Commonwealth and the interests of society which it represents.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“To require that a suppression record be cluttered with questions of ultimate relevance is senseless. A suppression record ought not, and properly handled does not, disclose the ultimate relevance of a piece of evidence or why a prosecution could not go forth if that evidence is suppressed. The relevancy of a piece of evidence can rarely be seen outside the context of the case, even then, not always clearly. Most often considerable thought and argument must be supplied before a piece of evidence is clearly discerned as relevant. All relevant evidence may not be necessary to a prosecution, but one piece of suppressed evidence may make all other evidence irrelevant. It is an argument all its own and certainly must be an argument dehors the record of a suppression court.”
3 later decisions 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.