Commonwealth v. Flamer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 state decisions

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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “we give the trial court broad discretion, and we will only reverse a trial court’s decision to admit or deny evidence on a showing that the trial court clearly abused its discretion. An abuse of discretion is not merely an error in judgment, but an overriding misapplication of the law, or the exercise of judgment that is manifestly unreasonable, or the result of bias, prejudice, ill-will or partiality, as shown by the evidence or the record.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2016 Pa. Super. 93 - Commonwealth v. Diehl · 2015 Pa. Super. 269 - Commonwealth v. Talbert

2. “Moreover, under our Rules of Evidence: The threshold inquiry with the admission of evidence is whether the evidence is relevant. Unless otherwise prohibited by law, all relevant evidence is admissible; all irrelevant evidence is inadmissible. Pa.R.E. 402. The Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence defíne[ ] relevant evidence as “evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less-probable than it would be without the evidence.” Pa.R.E. 401.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2015 Pa. Super. 236 - Commonwealth v. Tyack

3. “However, [e]vidence will not be prohibited merely because it is harmful to the defendant. ■ [Exclusion is limited to evidence so prejudicial that it would inflame the jury to make a decision based on something other Than the legal propositions relevant to the case_ This Court has stated that it is not required to sanitize the trial, to eliminate all unpleasant facts from the jury’s consideration, where those facts are relevant to the issues at hand[.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2015 Pa. Super. 269 - Commonwealth v. Talbert