Commonwealth v. Pursell’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
226 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 234 later decisions — most recently June 2024 · most notably Commonwealth v. Travaglia (1995), Commonwealth v. Buehl (1986)
226 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 Furman v. Georgia · Proffitt v. Florida · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Rideau v. Louisiana · Bridges v. State of California Times-Mirror Co
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 234 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Pre-trial prejudice is presumed if: (1) the publicity is sensational, inflammatory, and slanted towards conviction rather than factual and objective; (2) the publicity reveals the accused’s prior criminal record, if any, or if it refers to confessions, admissions, or reenactments of the crime by the accused; and (3) the publicity is derived from police and prosecuting officer reports.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the infliction of a considerable amount of pain and suffering on a victim which is unnecessarily heinous, atrocious, or cruel manifesting exceptional depravity.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`an intention to inflict pain, suffering or both pain and suffering.'”
5 later decisions 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.