Commonwealth v. Fenstermaker’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 89 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 93 later decisions — most recently March 2024 · most notably Public Citizen v. Liggett Group, Inc. (1988), 417 Pa. Super. 93 - Hutchison by Hutchison v. Luddy (1992)
4 federal appellate · 89 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 In re Oliver · Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia · Estes v. Texas · Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc. · Gannett Co Inc v. A
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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he threshold inquiry in a case such as this where a common law right of access is asserted is whether the documents sought to be disclosed constitute public judicial documents, for not all writings connected with judicial proceedings constitute public judicial documents.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]here the presumption of openness attached to a public judicial document is outweighed by circumstances warranting closure of the document to public inspection, access to the document may be denied [by the court].”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Djocuments upon which a magistrate bases a decision to issue an arrest warrant are clearly judicial in character, for the decision to issue a warrant is itself a judicial one reflecting a determination that the affidavits and the information contained therein provide a sufficient basis upon which to justify an arrest.”
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.