Commonwealth v. Karkaria’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
59 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 60 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably Commonwealth v. Widmer (2000), Commonwealth v. Brown (1994)
59 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 Tibbs v. Florida · New Motor Vehicle Board of California v. Chevrolet Motor Division, General Motors Corp. · Commonwealth v. Farquharson · Commonwealth v. Meadows · Commonwealth v. Devlin
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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“`An allegation that the verdict is against the "weight" of the evidence is a matter to be resolved by the trial court: While there may be some legitimacy for a trial court, who [sic] has also observed the witnesses as they testified, to consider the weight of the evidence and to that extent review the jury's determination of credibility, there is surely no justification for an appellate court, relying upon a cold record, to exercise such a function. Commonwealth v. Farquharson, 467 Pa. 50, 59-60 , 354 A.2d 545, 550 (1976).'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Normally, the evidence is deemed to be sufficient where there is testimony offered to establish each material element of the crime charged and to prove commission of the offense by the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. The question of credibility is left to the [finder of fact] and the verdict will not be disturbed if the [finder of fact] determines the evidence is worthy of belief. We have, however, made exception to the general rule that the [finder of fact] is the sole arbiter of the facts where the testimony is so inherently unreliable that a verdict based upon it could amount to no more than surmise or conjecture.”
3 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.