Commonwealth v. Sawhill’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
141 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 143 later decisions — most recently December 2021 · most notably Commonwealth v. Benham (1991), Partin v. Commonwealth (1996)
141 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 Jackson v. Virginia · Trowel v. Commonwealth · Spivey Ex Rel. Spivey v. Sheeler · Hodges v. Commonwealth · Fugate v. Commonwealth
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 143 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“On motion for directed verdict, the trial court must draw all fair and reasonable inferences from the evidence in favor of the Commonwealth. If the evidence is sufficient to induce a reasonable juror to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, a directed verdict should not be given. For the purpose of ruling on the motion, the trial court must assume that the evidence for the Commonwealth is true, but reserving to the jury questions as to the credibility and weight to be given to such testimony.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage““If under the evidence as a whole it would not be clearly unreasonable for a jury to find the defendant guilty, he is not entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal.””
12 later decisions quote this exact passage“[i]t should be remembered that the trial court is certainly authorized to direct a verdict for the defendant if the prosecution produces no more than a mere scintilla of evidence. Obviously, there must be evidence of substance.”
4 later decisions 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.