Hicks v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently April 2011
2 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
Relies on Kennedy v. Commonwealth · Merritt v. Commonwealth
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * There was no evidence that the instrument alleged to have been used was anything other than a pistol, which by statutory definition is a deadly weapon. It should never be necessary in the instructions to define the words, ‘deadly weapon.’ Whether the particular instrument is or is not a deadly weapon should be determined by the court as a matter of law. * * * ””
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.