29 Cal. 3d 814 - People v. Davis’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 338 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 347 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably 9 Cal. 4th 331 - People v. Scott (1994), 35 Cal. 3d 131 - Carlos v. Superior Court (1983)
3 federal appellate · 338 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · United States v. Mendenhall · Jackson v. Denno · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia
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 347 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]hen language which is reasonably susceptible of two constructions is used in a penal law ordinarily that construction which is more favorable to the offender will be adopted. [¶] The defendant is entitled to the benefit of every reasonable doubt, whether it arise out of a question of fact, or as to the true interpretation of words or the construction of language used in a statute.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“the entire procedural scheme for disposition of a charge of special circumstances [under the 1978 initiative] ... `is properly restricted to cases involving adults charged with first degree murder and subject to the death penalty.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"[T]he difference in time is less significant than the difference in effect on the human spirit. `Life in prison [without the possibility of parole] is unique, . . . and it . . . differs in kind from all other, lesser sentences of imprisonment, including a sentence of life imprisonment with a fixed parole-eligibility date.' [Citation.]"”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.