Commonwealth v. Chmiel’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
78 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions — most recently January 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal (1998), Commonwealth v. Copenhefer (1998)
78 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 Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · United States v. Owens · Commonwealth v. Pierce · Commonwealth v. Hubbard · Anschuetz & Co. v. Mississippi River Bridge Authority
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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When a Commonwealth witness was so involved in the crime charged that he was an accomplice, his testimony is to be judged by special precautionary rules. Experience shows that an accomplice, when caught, will often try to place the blame falsely on someone else. These are the special rules that apply to accomplice testimony: First, you should view the testimony of an accomplice with disfavor because it comes from a corrupt and polluted source. Second, you should examine the testimony of an accomplice closely and accept it only with care and caution.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“(1) with the intent of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense, he: (i) solicits such other person to commit it; or (ii) aids or agrees or attempts to aid such other person in planning or committing it; or (2) his conduct is expressly declared by law to establish complicity.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.