Miller v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 88 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 112 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2011 · most notably Amadeo v. Russeau (1981), White v. State (1986)
2 federal appellate · 88 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 Wong Sun v. United States · Gregg v. Georgia · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Furman v. Georgia · United States v. Ventresca
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 112 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We think it a better practice, and less confusing to the jury, for the circuit judge to omit from submission any aggravating or mitigating circumstances that are completely unsupported by any evidence, and we take this opportunity to direct the circuit judges of Arkansas to hereafter follow this alternate procedure.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Ford v. State · Willett v. State“[1] The capital murder was committed while Thomas Leo Springs was under extreme mental or emotional disturbance. [2] The capital murder was committed while Thomas Leo Springs was acting under unusual pressure or influences or under the domination of another person. [3] The capital murder was committed while the capacity of Thomas Leo Springs to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was impaired as a result of mental disease or defect, intoxication, or drag abuse. [4] The youth of Thomas Leo Springs at the time of the commission of the capital murder. [5] The capital murder was committed by another person and Thomas Leo Springs was an accomplice and his participation was relatively minor. [6] Thomas Leo Springs has had no significant history of prior criminal activity.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Springs v. State · Jones v. State“review the sufficiency of the State's evidence in the light most favorable to the State to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found the existence of the aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.