Commonwealth v. Shaffer’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently December 2010
2 federal appellate · 5 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 United States v. Turkette · Calder et Wife, v. Bull et Wife. · Commonwealth v. Jones · Commonwealth v. Paolello · Commonwealth v. Young
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.
““Enterprise” means any individual, partnership, corporation, association or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity, engaged in commerce and includes legitimate as well as illegitimate entities and governmental entities.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Our Supreme Court, by a four-to-three vote, decided that the Pennsylvania Corrupt Organization’s [sic] Act did not apply to those corrupt organizations who wholly engaged in illegal activities. In other words, they said, a corrupt organization had to also be involved in legitimate business enterprises for that to come under the purview of the Corrupt Organizations Act.... That was not the intent, I do not believe, of this legislature back in 1970 when the act was passed. I do not think it is our intent today, and I think we ought to join with Chief Justice Nix in his dis[s]enting opinion, along with Justices Castille and Sandra Schultz Newman, and change our act so that the rest of the Supreme Court understands what we intend.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[i]f Besch were the last relevant pronouncement concerning the scope of the corrupt organizations statute, we would be constrained to reverse appellant's conviction. It is not. Within two weeks after the Besch decision, the Pennsylvania legislature amended the statute, and in so doing expressed its disagreement with the supreme court's ruling. [3] The legislature stated that it never intended to exempt illegal or illegitimate businesses from the reach of the Act.”
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.