Goersen v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1882
Citation profile
50 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently July 2012 · most notably State v. Barfield (1979), Commonwealth v. Williams (1931)
50 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 Coleman v. . People of the State of N.Y. · State v. Renton
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“as a general rule, evidence of his participation in another independent and distinct crime, cannot be received simply for the purpose of proving his commission of the offence for which he is on trial: Whar.Crim. Ev. § 30; Coleman v. People, 55 N.Y. 90 ; State v. Renton, 15 N.H. 174 ; Commonwealth v. Campbell, 7 Allen 542 ; Shaffner v. Commonwealth, 22 P.F. Smith 60. It cannot be received to impeach his general character, nor merely to prove a disposition to commit crime. Yet under some circumstances, evidence of another offence by the defendant may be given. Thus it may be to establish identity; to show the act charged was intentional and willful, not accidental; to prove motive; to show guilty knowledge and purpose, and to rebut any inference of mistake; in case of death by poison, to prove the defendant knew the substance administered, to be poison; to show him to be one of an organization banded together to commit crimes of the kind charged; and to connect the other offence with the one charged, as part of the same transaction.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.