Commonwealth v. Dowling’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently April 2023
17 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.
Relationships
Relies on Serfass v. United States · Commonwealth v. Lamonna · Commonwealth v. Karetny · In Re Hickson · Commonwealth v. Houck
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A trial commences when the trial judge determines that the parties are present and directs them to proceed to voir dire or to opening argument, or to the hearing of any motions which had been reserved for the time of trial, or to the taking of testimony, or to some other such first step in the trial. It is not intended that preliminary calendar calls should constitute commencement of a trial.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Commonwealth v. El“when a court has begun to hear motions which have been reserved for the time of trial; when oral arguments have commenced; or when some other such substantive first step in the trial has begun”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Kaulia
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.