Commonwealth v. Derby

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that actor is not required to retreat from his dwelling unless he is initial aggressor
• holding wife had no duty to retreat from the marital home, where husband threatened to kill her
• stating that “where a decision rests on two or more grounds, none can be relegated to the category of obiter dictum. . . . The fact that the same result may be reached by either of two rulings of a court does not make either dictum”
• issue of self-defense raised on direct appeal

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Cited by

6 cases in this archive cite this case.

• Commonwealth v. Serge
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 2003-12-03· cited 49×
• Commonwealth v. Barnett
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 2011-07-20· cited 34×
• State v. Harden
  West Virginia Supreme Court· 2009-07-27· cited 31×
• Commonwealth v. Hornberger
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 2013-08-09· cited 23×
• Com. v. Focht, N.
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 2025-04-14
• Com. v. Zealor, E.
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 2026-04-22

Cites

17 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

• Commonwealth v. Story
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1978-01-26· cited 730×
• Stewart v. Motts
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1995-02-15· cited 111×
• Martin v. Capital Cities Media, Inc.
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1986-06-12· cited 109×
• Commonwealth v. Johnston
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1970-03-20· cited 103×
• Commonwealth v. Cropper
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1975-10-03· cited 92×
• Commonwealth Ex Rel. Fox v. Swing
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1962-11-28· cited 84×
• Commonwealth v. Boerner
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 1980-10-03· cited 65×
• Commonwealth v. Wilkes
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1964-04-21· cited 59×
• Commonwealth v. Eberle
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1977-10-07· cited 39×
• Commonwealth v. Walley
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1976-03-17· cited 36×
• Commonwealth v. Johnson
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1906-01-02· cited 33×
• Commonwealth v. Mason
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1974-07-01· cited 30×
• Commonwealth v. Helm
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1979-05-01· cited 27×
• Manley v. Manley
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 1960-09-20· cited 25×
• Commonwealth v. Collazo
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1962-05-21· cited 22×
• MacKey v. Adamski
  Superior Court of Pennsylvania· 1981-04-24· cited 21×
• Commonwealth v. Fraser
  Supreme Court of Pennsylvania· 1952-01-07· cited 16×