563 Pa. 269 - Commonwealth v. Spotz

How this case has been cited

Cited by 95 later decisions — most recently May 2023 · most notably Commonwealth v. Freeman (2003), Commonwealth v. Wright (2008)

95 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.

FLAHERTY, Chief Justice,

¶1concurring.

¶2A jury with the weighty responsibility of deciding whether one lives or is put to death certainly should be made aware of what is meant by life without parole in this commonwealth, thus, although I join the majority, I write once again to express my view that a Simmons type instruction should be given in all capital cases.

*291NIGRO, Justice,

¶3concurring.

¶4I join the majority opinion but write separately only to clarify my position regarding Appellant’s claim that he was entitled to a Simmons instruction at his penalty hearing. Under the current state of the law, I am compelled to agree with the majority that the trial court did not err in failing to issue a Simmons instruction in the instant case, as Appellant did not request such an instruction nor did the Commonwealth raise the issue of Appellant’s future dangerousness. However, for the reasons more fully explained in my concurring opinion in Commonwealth v. Clark, 551 Pa. 258, 710 A.2d 31, 43-44 (1998), I continue to believe that the better approach would be to give a standardized Simmons instruction in all capital cases.