Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 20 later decisions — most recently October 2020
20 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 Anders v. California · Douglas v. People of State of California · Pennsylvania v. Finley · United Mine Workers of America 1992 Benefit Plan v. Leckie Smokeless Coal Co. · Commonwealth v. Turner
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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) [to] give[] the reviewing court a basis upon which to decide if the appeal is, in fact, frivolous, and (2) [to] give[ ] indigent defendants as nearly as is practicable that which is guaranteed them under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, the right to counsel (and, in the process, [to] protect[] counsel from ineffectiveness allegations). ■”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he Anders requirements to withdraw from representation on direct appeal are ... stringent, and with good reason. A defendant has a constitutional right to a direct appeal, see Pa. Const. Art. [I], § 9, and a constitutional right to counsel for his direct appeal. See Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 [ 83 S.Ct. 814 , 9 L.Ed.2d 811 ] (1963); Pa. Const. Art. I., § 9.... Due to these constitutional concerns, it is incumbent upon counsel seeking to withdraw to afford the defendant competent representation, and not to argue against his client’s interests.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“(1) petition the court for leave to withdraw stating that, after making a conscientious examination of the record, counsel has determined that the appeal would be frivolous; (2) file a brief referring to anything that arguably might support the appeal but which does not resemble a “no-merit” letter or amicus curiae brief; and (3) furnish a copy of the brief to the defendant and advise the defendant of his or her right to retain new counsel or raise any additional points that he or she deems worthy of the court’s attention.”
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.