Sommers v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently November 2021
13 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 Boykin v. Alabama · Commonwealth v. Reneer · Smith v. Commonwealth · Simmons v. Commonwealth · Hicks v. Commonwealth
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) A needy person who is being detained by a law enforcement officer, on suspicion of having committed, or who is under formal charge of having committed, or is being detained under a conviction of, a serious crime, is entitled: [[Image here]] (b) To be provided with the necessary services and facilities of representation including investigation and other preparation. The courts in which the defendant is tried shall waive all costs.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“impartiality might reasonably be questioned in view of all the circumstances— his involvement in the guardianship proceedings, his statements to the press following the indictment, his extra-judicial knowledge of [the appellant’s] background, and his insistence on an October 28rd trial date while being a candidate for election in November, juxtaposed with the adverse publicity which he had received as a result of the girls’ deaths.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“Any defending attorney operating under the provisions of this chapter is entitled to use the same state facilities for the evaluation of evidence as are available to the attorney representing the Commonwealth. If he considers their use impractical, the court concerned may authorize the use of private facilities to be paid for on court order by the county.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.