Wellman v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 41 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2018 · most notably Buchanan v. Kentucky (1987), 132 S. Ct. 2148 - Parker v. Matthews (2012)
10 federal appellate · 41 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 Gall v. Commonwealth · Edmonds v. Commonwealth · Ratliff v. Commonwealth · Pace v. Commonwealth · Bartrug 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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[MJental illness may be considered by the jury in the reaction by a particular defendant when there is (first) probative, tangible and independent evidence of initiating circumstances, such as provocation at the time of his act which is contended to arouse extreme emotional disturbance. It is not such a disturbance when standing alone.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he presence of extreme emotional distress is a matter of evidence, not an element of the crime.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“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 a reasonable doubt in that respect.”
2 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.