Gall v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
13 federal appellate · 80 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 104 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2023 · most notably Buchanan v. Kentucky (1987), 132 S. Ct. 2148 - Parker v. Matthews (2012)
13 federal appellate · 80 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Schmerber v. State of California · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Furman v. Georgia · Irvin v. Dowd · Sheppard v. Maxwell
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 104 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[A]cted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant’s situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“An instruction on murder need not require the jury to find that the defendant was not acting under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance unless there is something in the evidence to suggest that he was, thereby affording room for reasonable doubt in that respect.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]t is no answer to say that defense counsel offered to stipulate the essential facts proved by the pathologist and illustrated by the photographs, hence they were unnecessary. The Commonwealth has a right to prove its case to the jury even when the defendant pleads guilty. The defendant is not entitled to erase the ugly parts of the picture and substitute words in their place. In order for a jury to be able to size up a case fairly and wisely it must be allowed to gain a reasonable perspective, and that can best be done by permitting it to see an unadulterated picture.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.