State v. Morris’s Empirical Analysis
2007
Citation profile
130 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 134 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2024 · most notably State v. Garza (2007), State v. Don Chappell (2010)
130 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 Chapman v. State of California · Gregg v. Georgia · Ring v. Arizona · Donnelly v. DeChristoforo · Woodson v. North Carolina
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 134 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Concerning this aggravating circumstance, all first-degree murders are to some extent ... cruel____However, this aggravating circumstance cannot be found to exist unless the State has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder was “especially” cruel____ “Especially” means “unusually great or significant.” In other words, the murder must have been corn mitted in such a way as to set the Defendant’s acts apart from the norm of first-degree murder. The term “cruel” focuses on the victim’s mental anguish. To find that the murder was committed in an “especially” cruel manner you must find that the victim consciously suffered extreme mental distress or anguish prior to death. A murder is “especially” cruel when there has been the infliction of mental suffering in an “especially” wanton and insensitive or vindictive manner. The Defendant must know or should have known that the victim would suffer anguish. A finding of “cruelty” requires conclusive evidence that the victim was conscious during the infliction of the violence and experienced significant uncertainty as to his or her ultimate fate. The passage of time is not determinative.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[t]he jury's determination that death is the appropriate sentence will not be reversed 'so long as any reasonable jury could have concluded that the mitigation established by the defendant was not sufficiently substantial to call for leniency.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“review all death sentences to determine whether the trier of fact abused its discretion in finding aggravating circumstances and imposing a sentence of death.”
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.