State v. Syriani’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 301 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 317 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2018 · most notably State v. Gaines (1997), State v. Green (1994)
9 federal appellate · 301 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 Anders v. California · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Wainwright v. Witt · Proffitt v. Florida
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 317 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“all cases arising since the effective date of our capital punishment statute, 1 June 1977, which have been tried as capital cases and reviewed on direct appeal by this Court and in which the jury recommended death or life imprisonment or in which the trial court imposed life imprisonment after the jury’s failure to agree upon a sentencing recommendation within a reasonable period of time.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“In determining the sufficiency of the evidence to submit an aggravating circumstance to the jury, the trial court must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, with the State entitled to every reasonable inference to be drawn therefrom, and discrepancies and contradictions resolved in favor of the State.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. State v. Jennings · State v. Bell“2. Was this murder especially heinous, atrocious or cruel? Every murder is, at least arguably, heinous, atrocious and cruel. In addition, this aggravating circumstance is limited to acts done during the commission of the murder and any act after the murder, regardless of how heinous or shocking, may not be considered. You shall not consider the burning of the deceased as an especially heinous, atrocious or cruel factor, because it occurred after the death of the victim. It could not indicate that the defendant enjoyed or was indifferent to the suffering of the deceased. In this context heinous means wicked, extremely wicked or shockingly evil; atrocious means outrageously wicked and vile; and cruel means designed to inflict a high degree of pain with utter indifference to, or even enjoyment of, the suffering of others. However, it is not enough that this murder be heinous, atrocious and cruel as those terms have been defined. This murder must have been especially heinous, atrocious and cruel, and not every murder is especially so. For this murder to have been especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, any brutality which was involved in it must have exceeded that which is normally present in any killing, or this murder must have been a conscienceless or pitiless crime which was unnecessarily tortuous [sic] to the victim.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. State v. Elliott · State v. Lemons
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.