Commonwealth v. McCrae’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
26
cited by 26 later decisions
2
cited 2 times by the Supreme Court
1
states following
January 2019
most recently cited
24 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Bruton v. United States · Richardson v. Marsh · Idaho v. Wright · Local 408, International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Labor Relations Board · Gray v. Maryland
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“there are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored. Such a context is presented here, where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial. Not only are the incriminations devastating to the defendant but their credibility is inevitably suspect.... The unreliability of such evidence is intolerably compounded when the alleged accomplice, as here, does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination. It was against such threats to a fair trial that the Confrontation Clause was directed.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“only in the context that gave rise to the decision, i.e., the introduction of a powerfully incriminating statement made by a non-testifying co-defendant at a joint trial. Bruton is inapplicable to statements made by an individual other than a non-testifying co-defendant at a joint trial of co-defendants.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“It is well-established...that the introduction of an unavailable witness's prior recorded testimony from a preliminary hearing is admissible at trial and will not offend the right of confrontation, provided the defendant had counsel and a full opportunity to cross-examine that witness at the hearing.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.