Montgomery v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently April 2018 · most notably Bowling v. Commonwealth (1997), Stopher v. Commonwealth (2001)
4 federal appellate · 63 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 Irvin v. Dowd · Sheppard v. Maxwell · Estes v. Texas · United States v. Wood · Commonwealth v. Reneer
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. . . is just another question where the answer may have some bearing on deciding whether a particular juror is disqualified by bias or prejudice . . . Id. at 718 .”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“One of the myths arising from the folklore surrounding jury selection is that a juror who has made answers which would otherwise disqualify him by reason of bias or prejudice may be rehabilitated by being asked whether he can put aside his personal knowledge, his views, or those sentiments and opinions he has already, and decide the case instead based solely on the evidence presented in court and the court’s instruction. This has come to be referred to in the vernacular as the “magic question.” But, as Chief Justice Hughes observed in United States v. Wood, 299 U.S. 123 , 57 S.Ct. 177 , 81 L.Ed. 78 (1936), “impartiality is not a technical conception. It is a state of mind.” A trial court’s decision whether a juror possessed “this mental attitude of appropriate indifference” must be reviewed in the totality of circumstances. It is not limited to the juror’s response to a “magic question.” In this case, the record is replete with circumstances establishing an inference of bias or prejudice on the part of jurors so pervasive that the jurors were be yond being rehabilitated as appropriate jurors by affirmative answer to such a question, however well intentioned.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T] mere fact that jurors may have heard, talked or read about a case does not require a change of venue, absent a showing that there is a reasonable likelihood that the accounts or descriptions of the investigation and judicial proceedings have prejudiced the defendant. . . . Prejudice must be shown unless it may clearly be implied in a given case from the totality of the circumstances.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.