Commonwealth v. Bracey’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
59 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions — most recently February 2017 · most notably Commonwealth v. Stair (1997), Commonwealth v. Spotz (2011)
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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Scharffe v. Perkins · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Weintraub · Bowsher v. Merck & Co.
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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The decision of whether to declare a mistrial in a criminal prosecution is within the sound discretion of the trial court and will not be reversed on appeal absent abuse of discretion. Moreover, this Court has held that the extreme remedy of a mistrial is not automatically required if it is determined that the inference of prior criminality was innocuous and that effective curative instructions were immediately given. Indeed, a mistrial must be granted only when an incident is of such a nature that its unavoidable effect is to deprive defendant of a fair trial. Consideration of all the circumstances is necessary in determining whether an instruction can cure the exposure of improper evidence to the jury.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The often-stated rule in Pennsylvania governing the evidence of other crimes is that such evidence is not admissible solely to show a defendant’s bad character or propensity for continuing criminal acts. However, not all references which may indicate prior criminal acts warrant reversal. Mere passing references to prior criminal activity will not require reversal unless the record illustrates definitively that prejudice resulted from the record. In addition, it is also well-established that evidence of other crimes may be admitted where there is a legitimate evidentiary purpose for such evidence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“(i) the sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor; (ii) the evidence fails to support the finding of at least one aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d); or (iii) the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the circumstances of the crime and the character and record of the defendant.”
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.