Commonwealth v. Eubanks’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently February 2026
17 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 Chambers v. Mississippi · Webb v. Texas · Commonwealth v. Clair · Commonwealth v. McCusker · Carter v. Hewitt
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Pennsylvania, more than any other sovereignty in history, traces its origins directly to the principle that the fundamental right of conscience is inviolate. See The Papers of William Penn, Vol. I (Dunn & Dunn, University of Pennsylvania Press), pp. 51-52, 90-93, 268, 280, 452, 511. In general, thus, our Commonwealth is neutral regarding religion. It neither encourages nor discourages religious belief. It neither favors nor disfavors religious activity. A citizen of this Commonwealth is free, of longstanding right, to practice a religion or not, as he sees fit, and whether he practices a religion is strictly and exclusively a private matter, not a matter for inquiry by the state.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]n the context of a criminal defense, such evidence is admissible because it makes the defendant’s version “more probable than it would be without” evidence of the conviction. Admittedly, admission of such evidence may, to some degree, smear the complaining witness in the eyes of the jury. But the complaining witness is not on trial; her liberty is not at stake.”
1 later decision 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.