Caldwell v. Bell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

9 federal appellate ·

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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he prosecutor, just before the instruction was given, had just argued to the jury to convict for first degree murder because the use of a deadly weapon is the “embodiment of the word malice.” Hence most normal jurors would think that the use of a deadly weapon gives rise to the inference of intent to kill. At least it is unreasonable to think that some jurors did not believe that the use of a deadly weapon was equivalent to an intent to kill after listening to both the judge’s instructions and the prosecutor’s argument.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Miller v. Colson

2. “Once the jury was instructed to presume malice, it would have been ‘substantially swayed’ to reject the defense’s theory of the killing that there was adequate provocation to produce a verdict of manslaughter. This left it with only the prosecution’s theory of the killing: that it was first-degree murder. Thus, the instruction substantially and injuriously affected the verdict, resulting in prejudice to the petitioner.[ 3 ]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Miller v. Colson