Commonwealth v. Eddings’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 state decisions

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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(a) Mandatory sentence— (1) Any person, who is convicted in any court of the Commonwealth of a crime of violence shall, if at the time of the commission of the current offense the person had previously been convicted of a crime of violence and has not rebutted the presumption of a high risk dangerous offender as provided in subsection (c), be sentenced to a minimum sentence of at least ten years total confinement[.]”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 2006 Pa. Super. 4 - Commonwealth v. Knowles · 2000 Pa. Super. 271 - Commonwealth v. Wynn

2. “(1) Any person who is convicted in any court of this Commonwealth of a crime of violence shall, if at the time of the commission of the current offense the person had previously been convicted of a crime of violence, be sentenced to a minimum sentence of at least ten years of total confinement, notwithstanding any other provision of this title or other statute to the contrary. Upon a second conviction for a crime of violence, the court shall give the person oral and written notice of the penalties under this section for a third conviction for a crime of violence. Failure to provide such notice shall not render the offender ineligible to be sentenced under paragraph (2). (2) Where the person had at the time of the commission of the current offense previously been convicted of two or more such crimes of violence arising from separate criminal transactions, the person shall be sentenced to a minimum sentence of at least 25 years of total confinement, notwithstanding any other provision of this title or other stat ute to the contrary. Proof that the offender received notice of or otherwise knew or should have knoivn of the penalties under this paragraph shall not be required. Upon conviction for a third or subsequent crime of violence the court may, if it determines that 25 years of total confinement is insufficient to protect the public safety, sentence the offender to life imprisonment without parole. (a.1) Mandatory maximum.. — .An offender sentenced to a mandatory minimum sen”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Norris

3. “As noted, I believe that there was not just a failure to give notice of the intent to invoke the third strike, but what was given was misleading. My recollection of the evidence is that instead of notifying the defendant that he faced a “third strike” or referring to the second section of 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9714 which talks about a person convicted of two or more prior crimes of violence, it only referred to the general statute. This could easily be interpreted to mean the one time before Norris was sentenced for a crime of violence. Although he had two separate crimes, robbery and rape, occurring at two separate times, the sentences were before the same judge and they were concurrent. Thus it is easy to believe that this was considered one crime of violence, not two. It would have been easy for the Commonwealth to use plain English and tell Norris that he would be sentenced as someone who has “previously been convicted of two or more such crimes of violence arising from separate criminal transactions...” However, the Commonwealth did. not do that. This is worse than not advising him at all, since it is subject to misinterpretation. Although the statute provides that failure to provide notice does not void the multiple offender section of the statute, providing misleading advice does.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Norris