Commonwealth v. Gorby’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

27 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “this [in] no way alters the principle that `the trial court is in the best position to review claims related to trial counsel's error in the first instance as that is the court that observed firsthand counsel's allegedly deficient performance.'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Sattazahn · Com. v. Martin

2. “All three mental health professionals confirmed that, after exáminations and testing of Gorby, they had each determined that he suffers (and suffered at the time of the offense) from cognitive disorder, other major mental health conditions, and the effects of substantial and prolonged childhood abuse, impacting on his thinking and conduct, and implicating the mitigating circumstances ... of the death penalty statute, 42 Pa. C.S. § 9711(e)(2), (e)(3), (e)(8). Although the expert witnesses generally testified that the etiology of the asserted cognitive disorder was difficult to determine, they emphasized that there were “red flags” present in Appellant’s medical and social history, including his irrational behavior at the time of the offense, [], head injury involving a fracturing of the portion of the skull adjacent to the left frontal lobe of the brain [], maltreatment during his childhood as evidenced by his life-history declarations and medical records indicating, inter alia, malnutrition, dehydration, and abandonment; incidence of high fever []; alcoholism and poly-substance abuse, [], dysfunctional and abuse family situation, [ ]; relatively high intelligence as distinguished from poor educational performance, [] and consistently poor decision making. The professionals also testified that it is not unusual for people with mental-health issues to lack self-recognition, [ ], nor is it unusual for persons involved in abusive family situations to demonstrate reluctance to dis”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Gorby v. Wetzel

3. “is limited to the findings of the PCRA court and the evidence on the record of the PCRA court's hearing, viewed in the light most favorable to the prevailing party.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Commonwealth, Aplt. v. Crispell, D.