State v. Murdaugh’s Empirical Analysis
2004
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 49 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably State v. Henderson (2005), State v. Johnson (2006)
6 federal appellate · 49 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1201 (International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act of 1993)
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Blakely v. Washington · Almendarez-Torres v. United States · Boykin v. Alabama · Brady v. United States
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The trial court first found that the evidence proffered in support of the (G)(1) mitigating circumstance also supported a finding of [eight] non-statutory mitigating circumstances.... The reports prepared' by Drs. Sindelar, Potts, and Scialli do reveal that Murdaugh experienced certain paranoid thoughts and delusions that were likeiy exacerbated by his history of chronic methamphetamine use. But because no 'mental health proféssional found a causal nexus between these conditions and the murders, we find beyond a reasonable doubt that no rational jury would have weighed these factors any differently than did the trial judge.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Murdaugh v. Ryan“1) whether the defendant relished the murder; 2) whether the defendant inflicted gratuitous violence on the victim; 3) whether the defendant needlessly mutilated the victim; 4) the senselessness of the crime; and 5) the helplessness of the victim.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. State v. Barraza
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.