Commonwealth v. Bobitski’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently January 2018
1 federal appellate · 8 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1961 (§ 901 of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act)
Relies on Sedima Sprl v. Imrex Company Inc · Hj Inc v. Northwestern Bell Telephone Company · United States v. Ruiz · Commonwealth v. Heinbaugh · Sterling & Esther Jensen v. George M. Snellings, III & Snellings, Breard, Sartor, Inabnett & Trascher, Defendants-Third Party Granada Corp. v. Appalachian Insurance Co., Third Party
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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]t was not the intent of the General Assembly to use this particular statute to enhance the punishment of an ‘organized’ criminal. A defendant who commits a series of methodical crimes is neither a natural nor an obvious target of the corrupt organizations statute. There are no facts alleged which lift the conduct of this particular white collar criminal out of the ordinary class of white collar criminals and make him appear to be part of the ‘sophisticated, diversified, and widespread phenomenon’ defined in the statute as organized crime. See, 18 Pa.C.S. § 911(a)(1).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In construing the intent of this statute we need not look beyond its actual words. The express intent was to prevent infiltration of legitimate businesses by organized crime. The corrupt organizations statute is a penal statute and must be strictly construed. Commonwealth v. Heinbaugh, 467 Pa. 1 , 354 A.2d 244 (1976); 1 Pa.C.S. § 1928(b)(1). Thus, when the Commonwealth argues that "appellee's conduct is exactly the sort of organized systematic conduct the statute appears to have targeted," they are utilizing the word organized in a manner not intended by the General Assembly. . . . The statute at issue was enacted to punish persons engaged in organized crime, not "organized" criminals.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]t was clearly and explicitly the intent of the corrupt organizations statute to ferret out organized crime `as it is commonly understood' and to severely punish those persons who engage in organized crime through a `pattern of racketeering activity.'”
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.