Commonwealth v. Morales’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
113 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 115 later decisions — most recently July 2015 · most notably Commonwealth v. Chester (1991), Commonwealth v. Lark (1988)
113 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 Witherspoon v. Illinois · Wainwright v. Witt · Ake v. Oklahoma · Zant v. Stephens · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board
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 115 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Severance of Offenses or Defendants The court may order separate trial of offenses or defendants or provide other appropriate relief, if it appears that any party may be prejudiced by offenses or defendants being tried together. Comment This rule provides the procedure whereby the court may, because of prejudice to a party, order separate trials of offenses or defendants that otherwise would be properly tried together under Rule 1127. A defendant may also request severance of offenses or defendants on the ground that trying them together would be improper under Rule 1127.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(2) Defendants charged in separate indictments or in-formations may be tried together if they are alleged to have participated in the same act or transaction ... constituting an offense or offenses.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(2) In addition to its authority to correct errors at trial, the Supreme Court shall either affirm the sentence of death or vacate the sentence of death and remand for the imposition of a life imprisonment sentence. (3) The Supreme Court shall affirm the sentence of death unless it determines that: (i) the sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor; (ii) the evidence fails to support the finding of an aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d); or (iii) the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the circumstances of the crime and the character and record of the defendant.”
2 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.