Commonwealth v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
2009
Citation profile
144 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 151 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably Commonwealth v. Ali (2010), Commonwealth v. Spotz (2011)
144 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 Strickland v. Washington · Brady v. State of Maryland · United States v. Cronic · Commonwealth v. Pierce · Florida v. Nixon
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 151 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the witness existed; (2) the witness was available to testify for the defense; (3) counsel knew of, or should have known of, the existence of the witness; (4) the witness was willing to testify for the defense; and (5) the absence of the testimony of the witness was so prejudicial as to have denied [appellant] a fair trial.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“Respect for that final judgment counsels that it is not a second trial jury, but the PCRA judge, who must render the Strickland prejudice determination. Were the analysis otherwise, the initial trial would lose its status as the main event, and final criminal judgments would be subject to va-catur based on mere affidavits. And so, the PCRA court clearly erred here in stating that "the task of determining witness credibility belongs to a jury.” That will be true if, and when, a defendant gets a new trial on Strickland grounds; but the predicate Strickland question on a collateral attack requires a judicial assessment of credibility in evaluating prejudice. Commonwealth v. Raymond Johnson, 600 Pa. 329 , 966 A.2d 523, 540 (2009). Credibility for purposes of the ineffectiveness test and credibility determinations at trial, nonetheless, are distinct. Id. at 541.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“(1) That the petitioner has been convicted of a crime under the laws of this Commonwealth and is at the time relief is granted: (1) currently serving a sentence of imprisonment, probation or parole for the crime... (2) That the conviction or sentence resulted from one or more of the following: (ii) Ineffective assistance of counsel which, in the circumstances of the particular case, so undermined the truth-determining process that no reliable adjudication of guilt or innocence could have taken place....”
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.