Commonwealth v. Melilli’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 112 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 116 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Commonwealth v. Edmunds (1991), Commonwealth v. Melendez (1996)
2 federal appellate · 112 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 Illinois v. Gates · Wong Sun v. United States · United States v. Leon · Mapp v. Ohio · Stovall v. Denno
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 116 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In Beauford , the Superior Court intended to equate telephone numbers with other forms of telephone communication which are regarded as private. Telephone activities are largely of one piece, and efforts to create distinctions between numbers and conversational content are constitutionally untenable in our view.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“substantial basis for . . . conclud[ing] that probable cause existed.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“While we remain cognizant of the appearance that federal standards allow greater latitude in law enforcement, it is clear to us that Beauford represents the marked trend of our state law to bring intrusions into telephone communications within the confines of an expectation of privacy under the State Constitution and thereby be subject to the requirements demonstrating probable cause...In Beauford , the Superior Court intended to equate telephone numbers with other forms of telephone communication which are regarded as private. Telephone activities are largely of one piece, and efforts to create distinctions between numbers and conversational content are constitutionally untenable in our view. Melilli at 1258-1259 .”
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.