Goodwin v. Hopper’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently October 2006
6 federal appellate · 15 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 Witherspoon v. Illinois · County of Los Angeles v. Chavez-Salido · Francis v. Henderson · Hawes v. State · Fleming v. State
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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have found the defendant guilty of the offense of murder. It is now your duty to determine, within the limits prescribed by law, the penalty that shall be imposed as punishment for that offense. In reaching this determination you are authorized to consider all the facts and circumstances of the case. Under the laws of this State, every person guilty of the offense of murder, shall be punished by life in the penitentiary, or death by electrocution. I charge you that before you would be authorized to find a verdict fixing a sentence of death by electrocution, you must find evidence of statutory aggravating circumstances, as I will define to you later in the charge, sufficient to authorize the supreme penalty of the law. I charge you that a finding of statutory aggravating circumstance shall only be based upon evidence convincing your mind beyond a reasonable doubt as to the existence of one, or of the factual condition in connection with the defendant’s perpetration of acts for which you have found him guilty. [Sic] Now, the law provides certain aggravating circumstances which you may consider for this purpose. If the offense of murder was committed while the offender was engaged in the crime of another capital felony, in this case, the capital felony charged by the State is that of armed robbery, I have given you in charge, you have received the definition of armed robbery. The statutory instructions that you are authorized to consider will be submitt”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Goodwin v. Balkcom
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.