Scott v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2019 · most notably Franklin v. Lynaugh (1988), Conyers v. State (1999)
33 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 Lockett v. Ohio · Eddings v. Oklahoma · Baskett v. United States · Wasman v. United States · Tichnell v. State
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““[t]he instruction would inform the jurors that they need not find a mitigating circumstance in order to impose a sentence of life imprisonment. This conflicts with the statutory scheme which requires a jury to impose a death sentence when no mitigating circumstances are found if at least one aggravating factor has been established beyond a reasonable doubt.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Conyers v. State · Evans v. State““You need not find a mitigating circumstance in order to impose a sentence of life imprisonment. Nothing in the law forbids you from extending mercy out of compassion or belief that life imprisonment is sufficient punishment under all the circumstances.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Oken v. State · Evans v. State“To have instructed the jury as Grandison requested would have negated the carefully thought out sentencing procedure designed to meet the constitutional requirements set forth by the Supreme Court by injecting the risk of arbitrary and capricious action into the proceeding.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Oken 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.