Commonwealth v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently July 2024 · most notably Commonwealth v. LaCava (1995), 422 Pa. Super. 224 - Commonwealth v. Fox (1993)
33 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 Streeter v. United States · Commonwealth v. Drum · Commonwealth v. Young · Commonwealth v. Hinchcliffe · Commonwealth v. Dorazio
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]t is not malice in its ordinary understanding alone, a particular ill-will, a spite or a grudge. Malice is a legal term, implying much more. It comprehends not only a particular ill-will, ’ but every case where there is wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, recklessness of consequences, and a mind regardless of social duty, although a particular person may not be intended to be injured.”
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.