Commonwealth v. Graham’s Empirical Analysis
2004
Citation profile
10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently August 2022
10 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 Mickens v. Taylor · Commonwealth v. Flebotte · Ginsburg v. Stern · Commonwealth v. Harrington · Commonwealth v. Rodriguez
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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The gist of the instruction would provide as follows: If there is evidence of excessive or unnecessary force by police in making an arrest, the Commonwealth must prove . beyond a reasonable doubt (1) that the arresting officer did not use excessive or unnecessary force in making the arrest. If the Commonwealth satisfies this burden, then the defendant has no right to engage in self-defense. If the Commonwealth fails to prove that excessive or unnecessary'force was not used by police, and there is evidence of self-defense, then the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt (2) that the defendant did not act in self-defense, or (3) that force used by the defendant in self-defense was unreasonable or excessive in the circumstances. See Commonwealth v. Kendrick, 351 Mass. 203, 211 (1966); Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 370 Mass. [684,] 692 n.10 [(1976)].””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“At least in circumstances where the evidence supports a claim of excessive or unnecessary force by police and the concomitant right to self-defense, we think the judge must also instruct that the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the police -30- did not engage in excessive force, as well as that the defendant did not act in self-defense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[W]e conclude that where the officer uses excessive or unnecessary force to subdue the arrestee, regardless of whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful, the arrestee may defend himself by employing such force as reasonably appears to be necessary.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.