Commonwealth v. Bricker’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

50 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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “There is no basis for the assertion that the prosecutor inferred that appellant had served time in prison for prior crimes. The prosecutor merely introduced evidence that one of the defense witnesses, Rossi, who had known appellant for 20 years, had been in prison for various periods during those 20 years. The mere fact that appellant knew someone who had been imprisoned is not evidence that appellant too had served time, and it is unreasonable to assume that only persons with records of criminal convictions could be acquainted with individuals who had served time in prison.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Bricker