Powell v. Tompkins’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 13 district · 2 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “first consider whether the challenged law imposes a burden on conduct that falls within the scope of the Second Amendment's guarantee as historically understood, and if so, ... next determine the appropriate form of judicial scrutiny to apply (typically, some form of either intermediate scrutiny or strict scrutiny).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Gould v. O'Leary · Worma v. Healey

2. “Together, Heller and McDonald establish that states may not impose legislation that works a complete ban on the possession of operable handguns in the home by law-abiding, responsible citizens for use in immediate self-defense.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Morin v. Lyver · Gould v. O'Leary

3. ““In order to defend another person with a dangerous weapon likely to cause serious injury or death, or in other words to use deadly force, the person using the weapon or deadly force must have a reasonable apprehension that the other person is in danger of great bodily harm or death, ■and a reasonable belief that no other means would suffice to prevent such harm. “Put another way, the proper exercise of defense of another person means that a person in the defendant’s circumstances, Mr. Allen’s circumstances, would reasonably believe that the other person was about to be attacked and that the other person was in immediate danger of being killed or seriously injured, and, and that there was no other way to avoid the attack. A person using a dangerous weapon or deadly force in defense of another must also have actually believed, actually believed that the other person was in imminent danger of serious harm or death. The person may not use force in defense of another person until he has availed himself of all proper means to avoid physical combat. A person who reasonably but mistakenly believes that the other person is in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death, and that he has used all proper means to avoid the use of force, may still use deadly force to defend the other person. . . . “[T]he Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not, did not act in defense of another. The Commonwealth may satisfy that burden by proving beyond a reasonab”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Allen