Commonwealth v. Frey’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 75 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 89 later decisions — most recently December 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. Travaglia (1995), Commonwealth v. Jones (1992)
2 federal appellate · 75 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 · Woodson v. North Carolina · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Mills v. Maryland · Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Weintraub
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 89 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(c) Instructions to jury.— (1) Before the jury retires to consider the sentencing verdict, the court shall instruct the jury on the following matters: (iv) the verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d) and no mitigating circumstance or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances. The verdict must be a sentence of life imprisonment in all other cases.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Steele v. Beard · Young v. State“counsel made a competent showing of such mitigating evidence as was available, including the testimony of appellant and testimony of character witnesses,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Frey v. Fulcomer“other evidence of mitigation concerning the character and record of the defendant and the circumstances of his offense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Frey v. Fulcomer
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.