Commonwealth v. Velazquez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 6 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On June 14, 2001, Gerardo Orbe helped his friend, Waldemar Torres, move from an apartment on Kibbe Street to an apartment on Hancock Street in the city of Springfield. At about 1:30 p.m., after making several trips between the two locations with Torres’s motor vehicle, Orbe returned to the Kibbe Street area. As Orbe drove down Kibbe Street, he saw a red car parked in front of Torres’s apartment. A young woman, who was standing on the sidewalk next to the motor vehicle, was talking to the driver. Orbe drove passed [sic] Torres’s apartment. While stopped at a stop sign, Orbe looked in his rearview mirror and saw the woman point toward the car he was driving. Sensing that something was afoot, Orbe headed toward the police station. The red car followed Orbe and pulled alongside his vehicle, into the lane for oncoming traffic. The passenger in the front seat was hanging out of the window on the passenger side of the vehicle with a gun in his hand. The passenger said something, which Orbe did not understand, and then began to shoot at Orbe. The passenger fired several shots in Orbe’s direction. Seven or eight bullets struck Orbe’s vehicle before a final shot struck Orbe. Orbe pulled his vehicle to the side of the road, and the red car stopped in front of it. After shots were fired in Orbe’s direction, the red car drove off. Orbe then exited his vehicle and collapsed on the sidewalk. Officer Donald Quinn was the first officer to arrive on the scene. Before being taken to Baystate Me”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Velazquez v. Spencer

2. “Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant, there was noth ing in the record to support any one of these theories ... The lack of a motive, however, runs counter to the theories of justification, excuse, and mitigation, each of which requires some evidence of a motive or a reason- for the killing ... Therefore, drawing the jury’s attention to these concepts would only have undermined the defense theory of the case.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Velazquez v. Spencer