Commonwealth v. May’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
44
cited by 44 later decisions
3
states following
July 2018
most recently cited
44 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Williams v. Taylor · Lockett v. Ohio · Wiggins v. Smith, Warden · Eddings v. Oklahoma
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] prosecutor’s arguments to the jury are [generally] not a basis for the granting of a new trial unless the unavoidable effect of such comments would be to prejudice the jury, forming in their minds fixed bias and hostility towards the accused which would prevent them from properly weighing the evidence and rendering a true verdict. A prosecutor must have reasonable latitude in fairly presenting a case to the jury and must be free to present [his] arguments with logical force and vigor. The prosecutor is also permitted to respond to defense arguments. Finally, in order to evaluate whether the comments were improper, we do not look at the comments in a vacuum; rather we must look at them in the context in which they were made.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.