Commonwealth v. Collins’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The completeness doctrine is based upon the notion of fairness — namely, whether the meaning of the included portion is altered by the excluded portion. The objective of that doctrine is to prevent a misleading impression as a result of an incomplete reproduction of a statement. This does not mean that by introducing a portion of a defendant’s confession in which the defendant admits the commission of the criminal offense, the Commonwealth opens the door for the defendant to use the remainder of that out-of-court statement for the purpose of asserting a defense without subjecting it to cross-examination.”

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

2. “A significant factor in identifying such prejudice is the extent to which evidence of one offense would be admissible in a trial of the other offense. In the case at bar, the evidence relating to the abuse charge would have been admissible in a trial on the murder charge, not, as Appellant mischaraeterizes it, as proof of criminal disposition, but, rather, as proof of a similar course of conduct or common scheme or plan.”

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

3. “[c]onviction can be premised on circumstantial evidence of such nature that, based on the whole case, it would not be clearly unreasonable for a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

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