33 Cal. 3d 21 - People v. Robertson’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 227 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 268 later decisions (13 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2021 · most notably California v. Brown (1987), 37 Cal. 3d 351 - People v. McDonald (1984)
19 federal appellate · 227 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 Edwards v. Arizona · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Eddings v. Oklahoma
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 268 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he jury could reasonably have concluded ... that from the outset of both incidents defendant harbored the intent to steal some of the victims’ underwear or other personal property as well as the intent to assault them sexually. Unlike in Green, such an intent to steal was entirely independent of the murders and was not planned simply as a means of concealing the killings. Because the jury could ... reasonably have found that defendant killed both victims when he became afraid that they would report his intended crimes, this case appears to fall within the class of cases as to which — under Green’s analysis — the “felony-murder” special circumstance of the 1977 statute may properly apply.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Clark v. Brown · Clark v. Brown“[t]he presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the expressed or implied threat to use force or violence.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Although the taking of his wife's clothing by force constituted a technical robbery, we concluded [in Green ] that the circumstances of that case did not constitute `a murder in the commission of a robbery but the exact opposite, a robbery in the commission of a murder.' [Citation.] Recognizing that `[a]t the very least ... the Legislature must have intended that each special circumstance provide a rational basis for distinguishing between those murderers who deserve to be considered for the death penalty and those who do not,' we concluded that such a goal `is not achieved ... when the defendant's intent is not to steal but to kill and the robbery is merely incidental to the murder ... because its sole object is to facilitate or conceal the primary crime.' [Citation.] In holding such an `incidental' robbery would not provide a proper basis for a special-circumstance finding, we specifically contrasted that case with one in which a defendant `kill[s] in cold blood in order to advance an independent felonious purpose, e.g., ... carrie[s] out an execution-style slaying of the victim of or witness to a holdup, kidnaping, or a rape.' [Citation.])”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.