Commonwealth v. Mason’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
72 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 72 later decisions — most recently December 2016 · most notably Commonwealth v. White (1995), Commonwealth v. Melendez (1996)
72 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 Mapp v. Ohio · Weeks v. United States · Segura v. United States · Murray v. United States · Commonwealth v. Edmunds
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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Application of the “independent source doctrine” is proper only in the very limited circumstances where the “independent source” is truly independent from both the tainted evidence and the police or investigative team which engaged in the misconduct by which the tainted evidence was discovered.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“If our sole purpose in applying Article I, Section 8 to the facts of this case were to deter police misconduct, we would be constrained to rule in favor of the Commonwealth, for in balancing the interests, it is apparent that society’s interest in arresting those guilty of serious crime should not be thwarted where police would inevitably and independently arrive at the same evidence, but for their illegal conduct. However, where our task is not merely to deter police misconduct, but also to safeguard privacy and the requirement that warrants shall be issued only upon probable cause, our conclusion is different.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures, and no warrant to search any place or to seize any person or things shall issue without describing them as nearly as may be, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation subscribed to by the affiant.”
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.