Murphy v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2010 · most notably Goins v. Commonwealth (1996), Beck v. Commonwealth (1997)
3 federal appellate · 44 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 Needler v. Valley National Bank of Arizona · Brewster v. Derwinski · Scherl v. Fisher · Webster v. Reproductive Health Services · Nagac v. Derwinski
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““In assessing the penalty of any person convicted of an offense for which the death penalty may be imposed, a sentence of death shall not be imposed unless the court or jury shall (1) after consideration of the past criminal record of convictions of the defendant, find that there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing serious threat to society or that his conduct in committing the offense for which he stands charged was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind or an aggravated battery to the victim; and (2) recommend that the penalty of death be imposed.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Murphy, Turner, and Hall ran from the bedroom to the living room, where they removed a videocassette recorder and a video game. Hinojosa, Robin, and Tina and Michael Bourne had instructed them to remove these items”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“extenuating circumstances tending to explain, but not excuse, [the] commission of the crime.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.