State v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 116 state decisions

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

1. “Although evidence showing emotional immaturity is relevant to submission of the (f)(7) mitigating circumstance, “this Court will not conclude that the trial court erred in failing to submit the age mitigator [ex mero motu] where evidence of defendant’s emotional immaturity is counterbalanced by other factors such as defendant’s chronological age, defendant’s apparently normal intellectual and physical development, and defendant’s lifetime experience.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Thompson · State v. Thompson

2. “Now, members of the jury, . . . you would take up and consider . . . mitigating Issue Three which reads as follows: “That the defendant has no significant history of prior criminal activity.” Significant, members of the jury, means important or notable. Whether any history of prior criminal activity is significant is for you to determine from all the facts and circumstances which you find from the evidence. However, you should not determine whether it is significant only on the basis of the number of convictions, if any, in the defendant’s record. Rather, you should consider the nature and quality of the defendant’s history, if any, in determining whether it is significant. And as to your determination and consideration on this — as to this particular mitigating circumstance as to significant history of prior criminal activity, you must not consider his convictions in this case, that is, of the first-degree murder and first-degree rape. You would find this mitigating circumstance if you find that the defendant has little, if any, prior criminal activity and find that the criminal activity that does exist is not a significant history of prior criminal activity.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Payne

3. “The burden of. proving the existence of a reasonable likelihood that he cannot receive a fair trial because of prejudice against him in the county in which he is to be tried rests upon the defendant. “In deciding whether a defendant has met his burden of showing prejudice, it is relevant to consider that the chosen jurors stated that they could ignore their prior knowledge or earlier formed opinions and decide the case solely on the evidence presented at trial.” The determination of whether a defendant has carried his burden of showing that pre-trial publicity precluded him from receiving a fair trial rests within the trial court’s sound discretion. The trial court has discretion, however, only in exercising its sound judgment as to the weight and credibility of the information before it, including evidence of such publicity and jurors’ averments that they were ignorant of it or could be objective in spite of it. When the trial court concludes, based upon its sound assessment of the information before it, that the defendant has made a sufficient showing of prejudice, it must grant defendant’s motion as a matter of law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Ward