Commonwealth v. Butler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 1 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The Commonwealth used fifteen peremptory challenges consisting of four white, two black, and one Hispanic female and six white and two black males. [The defendant and his codefendant] used twenty-three peremptory challenges consisting of sixteen white, two black, and one Hispanic female and four white males.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 92 Mass. App. Ct. 1119 - Commonwealth v. Butler

2. “Article 12 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights proscribes the use of peremptory challenges 'to exclude prospective jurors solely by virtue of their membership in, or affiliation with, particular, defined groupings in the community.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 92 Mass. App. Ct. 1119 - Commonwealth v. Butler

3. “[t]he defendant was tried with a codefendant, William Wood, on a theory of joint venture for crimes committed in the course of a botched kidnapping and robbery attempt.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 92 Mass. App. Ct. 1119 - Commonwealth v. Butler