State v. Breton’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
101 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 103 later decisions — most recently October 2025 · most notably Figueroa v. C & S Ball Bearing (1996), State v. Hines (1998)
101 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 Lockett v. Ohio · Darden v. Wainwright · Caldwell v. Mississippi · Eddings v. Oklahoma · 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 103 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) A person is guilty of murder when, with intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person ... except that in any prosecution under this subsection, it shall be an affirmative defense that the defendant committed the proscribed act or acts under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be, provided nothing contained in this subsection shall constitute a defense to a prosecution for, or preclude a conviction of, manslaughter in the first degree or any other crime. "(b) Evidence that the defendant suffered from a mental disease, mental defect or other mental abnormality is admissible, in a prosecution under subsection (a), on the question of whether the defendant acted with intent to cause the death of another person. ...”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“capital sentencing statutes, on their face, give the capital sentencer, either a jury or the court, the proper amount of guided discretion to make the appropriate determination regarding the individual defendant with regard to the defendant's specific crime.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“death penalty scheme provides the capital sentencer with sufficient latitude to make a reasoned moral and individualized determination, based on the defendant's background, character and crime, that death is the appropriate punishment.”
1 later decision 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.