Commonwealth v. Comer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

88 state decisions

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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and intent of the actor’s conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.”

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Huggins · 2002 Pa. Super. 15 - Commonwealth v. Seibert

2. “In determining whether the single criminal act could support multiple sentences ..., we examined whether the crimes were greater and lesser included offenses, i.e., whether the elements of the lesser included offenses were a necessary subcomponent but not a sufficient component of elements of the other crime. We recognized that the standard used to determine whether two charges constitute the “same offense” was first articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Blockburger v. U.S., 284 U.S. 299, 304 , 52 S.Ct. 180 , 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932): The applicable rule is that where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether they are two offenses or only one is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2014 Pa. Super. 148 - Commonwealth v. Jenkins

3. “[M]ere recklessness is insufficient to support a conviction for aggravated assault, which requires a higher degree of culpability, i.e., that which considers and then disregards the threat necessarily posed to human life by the offending conduct. There must be an element of deliberation or conscious disregard of danger not present to the same extent in, e.g., reckless endangerment.. .or driving while intoxicated. ... [F]or the degree of recklessness contained in the aggravated assault statute to occur, the offensive act must be performed under circumstances which almost assure that injury or death will ensue. The recklessness must, therefore, be such that life threatening injury is essentially certain to occur. This state of mind is, accordingly, equivalent to that which seeks to cause injury.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Dellavecchia