Commonwealth v. Daugherty’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “How to characterize prosecutions for violations of municipal ordinances has been ... troublesome. At common law, an action brought by the municipality for the violation of a municipal ordinance was considered a civil suit for penalty, and the normal civil burdens applied. That issue was so well-settled that in Commonwealth v. Carter, 36 Pa.Cmwlth. 569 , 377 A.2d 831, 832 (Pa.Cmwlth.1977), we stated: It has long been settled in this Commonwealth that an action instituted for violation of a municipal ordinance is a civil proceeding. Commonwealth v. Ashenfelder, 413 Pa. 517 , 198 A.2d 514 (1964); York v. Baynes, 188 Pa.Super. 581 , 149 A.2d 681 (1959). As we stated in City of Philadelphia v. Home Agency, Inc., 4 Pa.Cmwlth. 174, 177 , 285 A.2d 196, 198 (1971): “ ‘So many practitioners have been broken on the anvil of the principle settled by the cases cited, that we feel strongly that it should not be put in question again in this case.’ ” With the promulgation of the then new Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure, the anvil was broken. Through definitional changes, what we previously considered civil suits for penalty became penal in nature. As explained by our Supreme Court in Borough of West Chester v. Lal, 493 Pa. 387, 391 , 426 A.2d 603, 605 (1981), involving a defendant found guilty for having violated a municipal ordinance which provided for imposition of fine or imprisonment in the county jail for a term not to exceed 30 days: The Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedu”

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