Commonwealth v. Carpenter’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 114 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 124 later decisions — most recently October 2011 · most notably Commonwealth v. D'Amato (1987), Commonwealth v. Baker (1992)
2 federal appellate · 114 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 Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Weintraub · Commonwealth v. Clair · Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer · Commonwealth v. Frey
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 124 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[C]omments by a prosecutor do not constitute reversible error unless the “unavoidable effect of such comments would be to prejudice the jury, forming in their minds fixed bias and hostility toward the defendant so that they could not weigh the evidence objectively and render a true verdict.” Commonwealth v. Anderson, supra at 501 Pa. [275, at] 282, 461 A.2d [208, at] 211 [1983]; Commonwealth v. Upsher, 497 Pa. 621, 627 , 444 A.2d 90, 93 (1982).”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) A sentence of death shall be subject to automatic review by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania pursuant to its rules. (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“the mention of the witness' occupation as a parole officer and the fact that he knew the appellant did not convey to the jury, either expressly or by reasonable implication, the fact of a prior criminal offense or record” and that”
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.