151 Ill. 2d 498 - People v. Ramey’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 99 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 107 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably 205 Ill. 2d 52 - People v. Caffey (2001), 185 Ill. 2d 81 - People v. Kliner (1998)
3 federal appellate · 99 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 Batson v. Kentucky · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Hernandez v. New York · Eddings v. Oklahoma · Penry v. Lynaugh
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 107 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Before the defendant may be found eligible for a death sentence under the law, the State must prove the following propositions: First Proposition: That the defendant was 18 years old or older at the time of the commission of the murder[s] of which he has been found guilty *** ; and Second Proposition: That [(the following) (one or more of the following)] statutory aggravating factor [s] exist[s]: * * * The murdered person was killed in the course of another felony if [a] the murdered person was actually killed by the defendant; [and] *** [c] in performing the acts which caused the death of the murdered person, the defendant acted with the intent to kill the murdered person or with the knowledge that his acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to the murdered person [or another]; *** [e] the other felony [(was) (was one or more of the following:)] [(armed robbery) ***]. * * * If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that the First and Second Propositions have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then the defendant is eligible for a death sentence. If you cannot unanimously find that both the First and Second Propositions have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then the defendant is not eligible for a death sentence.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence““Before the defendant may be found eligible for a death sentence under the law, the State must prove the following propositions: First: That the defendant was 18 years old or older at the time of the commission of the murder of which he was found guilty; and Second: That one or more of the following aggravating factors exists: The murdered person was killed in the course of another felony if the murdered person was actually killed by the defendant; and the other felony was armed robbery. If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that the First and Second Propositions has [sic] been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is eligible for a death sentence. If you cannot unanimously find that both the First and Second Propositions have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is not eligible for a death sentence.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“'The sole function of instructions is to convey to the minds of the jury the correct principles of law applicable to the evidence submitted to it in order that, having determined the final state of facts from the evidence, the jury may, by the application of proper legal principles, arrive at a correct conclusion according to the law and the evidence.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. People v. Nere
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.