State v. Cooper’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 state decisions

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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On July 18, 1993, the six-year-old victim, L.G., her mother, R.G., and the victim's two sisters were at the home of R.G.'s sister-in-law, M.W., in Asbury Park. While M.W. was at the supermarket, R.G. sat on the front porch of the house with her youngest daughter. The victim and her other sister were with M.W.'s daughter playing in the frontyard. After playing in the frontyard for some time, the children moved into a fenced-in backyard. While they were playing in the backyard, defendant lured the victim away from the other children and eventually picked her up, lifted her over the fence, and walked away with her. The other children went to the frontyard and told R.G. what had occurred. R.G., joined by M.W., who had just returned from the supermarket, began to search for and to call out to L.G., but they could not locate her. Soon after, neighbors joined in the search. The Asbury Park Police Department was contacted shortly after L.G.'s disappearance, and police officers also joined the search. Within a few hours after the victim had disappeared, her body was found under a porch of an abandoned house. Defendant lived under that porch. L.G. was found lying on her back on a mattress with her shirt pulled up, her panties at her ankles, a pair of men's boxer shorts over her face, and her vaginal area exposed and bloodstained. The police found clothing and a bloodstained paper towel at arms's length from L.G.'s body. The police also found a gym bag that contained a wallet. Inside th”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 410 N.J. Super. 43 - State v. Cooper

2. “The defense presented an enormous amount of mitigating evidence about defendant's tragic childhood, which was replete with numerous foster care placements, abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence, drugs, and alcohol. Several experts testified that the lack of stability in defendant's life, his exposure to violence, and his lack of a relationship with his mother had affected him in numerous ways, such as making him aggressive and unable to empathize with others, as well as by reducing his ability to understand cause and effect. The defense also presented expert testimony that, as a result of defendant's upbringing, he was extremely emotionally disturbed and that he had not developed normally. The State's strategy during the penalty phase was to emphasize the good aspects of defendant's childhood. The prosecutor thus elicited testimony from defendant's relatives about the positive aspects of his familial and foster-care relationships, which the prosecutor argued in summation. The State rebutted defendant's expert mitigating evidence by presenting testimony that defendant's personality disorder was not treatable. The State's expert also testified that defendant's childhood would not prevent him from knowing the difference between right and wrong and would not make him unable to control his actions. The jury unanimously found that the State had proven that defendant had committed the murder to escape detection, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(f), and that he had done so in the course of co”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 410 N.J. Super. 43 - State v. Cooper

3. “Preliminarily, we acknowledge that the process of conducting precedent-seeking review is inherently subjective and does not lend itself to any analysis based on prescribed standards or factors. In comparing homicides from the standpoint of a defendant’s blameworthiness or the extent of victimization, there obviously will be ample room for disagreement over which defendant was more culpable and which homicide was more violent and horrific. Similarly, disagreement is inevitable concerning our effort to distinguish defendants on the basis of their characters and backgrounds. The virtue of precedent-seeking review is that it impels the Court to examine, evaluate, and compare homicides committed by defendants whose crimes were similar to the homicide committed by the defendant whose death sentence is under review, analyze the resulting sentences, and determine whether, in that unique context, the defendant’s death sentence is aberrational. The fallibility of the process is that it depends almost exclusively on imprecise, subjective reactions by the Court to the comparison eases. Despite its flaws, we remain convinced that the process is an indispensable component of proportionality review and that, properly applied, it can assist the Court in identifying and isolating disproportionate sentences of death. [Id. at 92-93, 731 A.2d 1000 .]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Feaster