Commonwealth v. Strong’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
69 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 75 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2014 · most notably Simmons v. South Carolina (1994), Commonwealth v. Jones (1992)
69 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 Lockhart v. McCree · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Weintraub · Anschuetz & Co. v. Mississippi River Bridge Authority · Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer
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 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The trial judge must initially decide whether the photographs possess inflammatory characteristics. If they do not the photographs are admissible as are any evidentiary items, subject to the qualification of relevance. If the photographs are deemed inflammatory, then the trial judge must decide whether the photographs are of such essential evidentiary value that their need clearly outweighs the likelihood of their inflaming the passions of the jurors. Commonwealth v. Hudson, 489 Pa. 620, 630 , 414 A.2d 1381, 1386 (1980).”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“A finding of the existence of the aggravating circumstance set forth in § 9711(d)(5) requires proof that the victim was killed to prevent his testimony in a pending grand jury or criminal proceeding. The existence of this particular aggravating circumstance may be found, absent a pending criminal proceeding, only where the facts establish by direct, rather than circumstantial evidence, that the killing resulted from the intention to eliminate a potential witness. This burden will not be met by simply showing that an individual who witnessed a murder or other felony committed by a defendant was also killed by the defendant.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[W]hether the defendant might at any future time be pardoned or have his sentence commuted is no concern of theirs and should not enter in any manner whatsoever into their consideration of the proper penalty to be imposed, which should be determined solely in the light of the relevant facts and circumstances as they then existed.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.