State v. Whitfield’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 62 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2021 · most notably Danforth v. Minnesota (2008), United States v. Mitchell (2007)
8 federal appellate · 48 state decisions — followed in 11 states
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 Apprendi v. New Jersey · Chapman v. State of California · Almendarez-Torres v. United States · Stovall v. Denno · Teague v. Lane
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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“an otherwise valid conviction should not be set aside if the reviewing court may confidently say, on the whole record, that the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Lopez · State v. Pace“[T]he second and third factors [of Linkletter-Stovall ] clearly favor retro-activity. ... Missouri juries have always made the decision whether to impose the death penalty except in those few cases in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Moreover ... Ring must be applied to all future death penalty cases and to those not yet final or still on direct appeal. Thus, only those few Missouri death penalty cases that are no longer on direct appeal and in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict and the judge made the required factual determinations and imposed the death penalty will be affected by the retroactive application of Ring. As a result, the effect of application of Ring to cases on collateral review will not cause dislocation of the judicial or prosecutorial system. This Court’s preliminary review of its records has identified only five potential such cases.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“In the event that any death sentence imposed pursuant to this chapter is held to be unconstitutional, the trial court which previously sentenced the defendant to death shall cause the defendant to be brought before the court and shall sentence the defendant to life imprisonment without eligibility for probation, parole, or release except by act of the governor, with the exception that when a specific aggravating circumstance found in a case is held to be inapplicable, unconstitutional or invalid for another reason, the supreme court of Missouri is further authorized to remand the case for retrial of the punishment pursuant to subsection 5 of section 565.035.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.