Greene v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1996
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 June 2023 · most notably Turner v. State (1996), Butts v. State (2001)
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
Relies on Jackson v. Virginia · Batson v. Kentucky · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Berger v. United States · Wainwright v. Witt
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.
“Greene points to nothing in the prosecutor’s argument which urged the imposition of the death sentence based upon his religious belief or urged that the teachings of a particular religion mandated the imposition of that sentence against him. Rather, the argument challenged by Greene consists entirely of references to principles of divine law related to the penological justifications for the death penalty, including the concept of retribution and whether, considering the enormity of his crime, Greene should be extended mercy. It is just this type of argument that was found to be authorized in Hill [v. State, 263 Ga. 37 , 427 S.E.2d 770 (1993) ] and Crowe [v. State, 265 Ga. 582 , 458 S.E.2d 799 (1995) ].”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Greene v. Upton“[Lemmons] expressed sympathy for cocaine users who engage in uncharacteristic criminal activity, [Duffie] failed to disclose a criminal conviction, [Walton] failed to report for jury duty the first day and reported a kidney problem which would interfere with her service, [Pope] was a single mother with no family in town to assist with child care, [Milligan] expressed reservations about the death penalty, and [Sullivan] was a single mother with doubtful child care arrangements who expressed hesitation about the death penalty.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Greene v. Upton“forbids a death penalty based in part on an emotional response to factors in evidence which implicate valid penological justifications for the imposition of the death penalty. Perforce, argument by the prosecutor which “dramatically appeals” to such legitimate emotional response is not “constitutionally intolerable.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Carruthers v. State
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.