Sanborn v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 110 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 116 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Prosecutors should, once and for all, abandon the term ‘investigative hearsay’ as a misnomer, an oxymoron. The rule is that a police officer may testify about information furnished to him only where it tends to explain the action that was taken by the police officer as a result of this information and and taking of that action is an issue in the case. Such information is then admissible, not to prove the facts told to the police officer, but only to prove why the police officer then acted as he did. It is admissible only if there is an issue about the police officer’s action.””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Burchett v. Commonwealth · Daniel v. Commonwealth

2. “We need not decide at what point before the witnesses testified the prosecutor should be compelled to produce these tapes. The critical point is the prosecutor made such notes as would assist him in using these persons as witnesses for the prosecution, and then destroyed the tapes, so that these verbatim statements were not available for the defense at any point. This was misconduct of constitutional proportions under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 , 83 S.Ct. 1194 , 10 L.Ed.2d 215, 219 (1963), and its progeny. Brady rules that where the prosecutor “withholds evidence on demand of an accused which, if made available, would [or might] tend to exculpate him or reduce the penalty,” such is a violation of due process. Id., 373 U.S. at 87-88 , 83 S.Ct. at 1197 . These verbatim tapes were as such the “best evidence” of the contents of the witnesses’ statements (Lawson, Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook, § 7.15 (2d ed.1984)), and a summary made by the prosecutor before he destroyed them does not suffice. Prejudice is presumed where the prosecutor destroys evidence. Hilliard v. Spalding, 719 F.2d 1443, 1446-47 (9th Cir.1983). As stated in United States v. Pollock, 417 F.Supp. 1332, 1349 (D.Mass.1976): “Such action passes beyond the line of tolerable human imperfection and falls into the realm of fundamental unfairness.” In Pollock , the court held that such action called for dismissal. However, in this case, the testimony of these witnesses, while important, was not essential to the Comm”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Estep v. Commonwealth · Bessinger v. Commonwealth

3. ““The right to instructions embodying an alternative offense, which is the defendant’s theory of the case, is not accommodated by an instruction that the defendant will be found not guilty if the Commonwealth has failed to prove the offense charged in the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt. Sanborn could hardly expect the jury to exonerate him in the face of his criminal misconduct, and this was the reason why his counsel requested instructions on a crime that presented a middle ground between the offense more severely punished and acquittal. [[Image here]] In one sense it may appear a misnomer to refer to the situation that exists when an accused admits to a state of facts that constitutes a criminal offense, while denying further facts that constitute a more serious offense, as a ‘defense.’ But by doing so the accused defends against the principal charge.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Turpin v. Commonwealth · Prince v. Commonwealth