Ex Parte Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 9 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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““[I]f you believe that the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the answers to the Special Issues are ‘Yes,’ and you also believe from the mitigating evidence, if any, that the Defendant should not be sentenced to death, then you shall answer at least one of the Special Issues ‘No’ in order to give effect to your belief that the death penalty should not be imposed due to the mitigating evidence presented to you. In this regard, you are further instructed that the State of Texas must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the death sentence should be imposed despite the mitigating evidence, if any, admitted before you.” Smith I, supra, at 40 (internal quotation marks omitted).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Smith v. Texas