Thomas v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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. “The word [conviction] generally means the ascertainment of defendant's guilt by some legal mode and an adjudication that the accused is guilty. This may be accomplished by a confession by the accused in open court, a plea of guilty or a verdict which ascertains and publishes the fact of guilt. We believe in the majority of those cases and in the majority of jurisdictions (although we have not counted noses), the word”

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

2. “When Appellant freely, knowingly, and intelligently entered a plea of guilty to first degree possession of a controlled substance, he acknowledged the fact of having committed a crime and accepted legal responsibility for a criminal act. Thus, Appellant's status as a `convicted felon' was established, and all that remained was the imposition of a sentence.”

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