Commonwealth v. Widmer’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently December 2018
16 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 Commonwealth v. Brown · 441 Pa. Super. 653 - Commonwealth v. Hodge · 446 Pa. Super. 408 - Commonwealth v. Widmer
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The issue under consideration — the weight of the evidence — is an exceptional issue which is unlikely to be preserved for appeal without the filing of a post-sentence motion. Thus, the option of forgoing a post-sentence motion and proceeding directly to the Superior Court, as permitted by Rule 1410, may not preserve the issue for appeal. Nevertheless, ... the trial court ... reviewed the weight of the evidence claim prior to the Superior Court’s review, and clearly held that the verdict was in fact contrary to the weight of the evidence. Therefore, the precept ... that a weight of the evidence claim must be addressed in the first instance by the trial court has been met. There was no need for the Superior Court to review a cold record and make an initial determination concerning the weight of the evidence[.] That being the case, it was error for the Superior Court ... to rule that appellant’s failure to file a post-sentence motion for a new trial had the effect of waiving his claim that the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“should have remanded the case to the trial court ... to permit [Widmer] to file a motion for a new trial nunc pro tunc challenging the weight of the evidence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Issues raised before or during trial shall be deemed preserved for appeal whether or not the defendant elects to file a post-sentence motion.”
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.