State v. Sexton’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 129 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 132 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably State v. Gaines (1997), State v. Rose (1994)
3 federal appellate · 129 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 Batson v. Kentucky · Wainwright v. Witt · Hernandez v. New York · Payne v. Tennessee · Lockhart v. McCree
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 132 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"One type includes killings physically agonizing or otherwise dehumanizing to the victim. State v. Lloyd, 321 N.C. 301, 319 , 364 S.E.2d 316, 328 [, sentence vacated on other grounds, 488 U.S. 807 , 109 S.Ct. 38 , 102 L.Ed.2d 18 ] (1988). A second type includes killings less violent but `conscienceless, pitiless, or unnecessarily torturous to the victim,' State v. Brown, 315 N.C. 40, 65 , 337 S.E.2d 808, 826-27 (1985), [ cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1164 , 106 S.Ct. 2293 , 90 L.Ed.2d 733 (1986), overruled on other grounds by State v. Vandiver, 321 N.C. 570, 364 S.E.2d 373 (1988),] including those which leave the victim in her `last moments aware of but helpless to prevent impending death,' State v. Hamlet, 312 N.C. 162, 175 , 321 S.E.2d 837, 846 (1984). A third type exists where `the killing demonstrates an unusual depravity of mind on the part of the defendant beyond that normally present in first-degree murder.' Brown, 315 N.C. at 65 , 337 S.E.2d at 827 ."”
4 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Hipps · State v. Bell“`Opening the door refers to the principle that where one party introduces evidence of a particular fact, the opposing party is entitled to introduce evidence in explanation or rebuttal thereof, even though the rebuttal evidence would be incompetent or irrelevant had it been offered initially.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“[i]t is improper for the district attorney, and defense counsel as well, to assert in his argument that a witness is lying[,] [h]e can argue to the jury that they should not believe a witness, but he should not call him a liar.”
2 later decisions 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.