Flanagan v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently May 2022
14 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 Lockett v. Ohio · Woodson v. North Carolina · Penry v. Lynaugh · Zant v. Stephens · Skipper v. South Carolina
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“any other matter which the court deems relevant . . .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[A] reasonable juror would conclude that mitigation was not restricted to crime-related factors because it was stated that the mitigating circumstances did not have to constitute a defense or reduce the degree of the crime. Furthermore, the jury in fact found two of the three mitigating circumstances to exist. In addition, the instruction as a whole adequately informed the jury of its right and duty to consider mitigating evidence. Finally, it is highly unlikely that a different outcome would have resulted from more specific instructions, given that the evidence of aggravating circumstances was overwhelming and clearly outweighed the mitigating circumstances found by the jury. Thus, we conclude that Instruction 8 did not violate the Eighth Amendment by impermissibly limiting the jury’s consideration of mitigation to evidence related to the crime.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Powell v. State“Murder of the First Degree may be mitigated by any of the following circumstances, even though the mitigating circumstance is not sufficient to constitute a defense or reduce the degree of the crime; 8. Any other mitigating circumstances.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Powell v. State
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.