Oken v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Under § 412(b), a defendant is not ‘death-eligible’ merely by having been found guilty of first degree murder. Rather, at the conclusion of the guilt/innocenee phase and a finding of guilty of first degree murder, the defendant is eligible only for a sentence of life imprisonment. The defendant cannot receive a sentence of death unless the additional requirements of § 413 have been met, i.e., that at least one aggravating factor has been proven, that the defendant is a principal in the first degree, and that the aggravating circumstance[s] outweigh any mitigating circumstances. See § 413(h). Just as the presence of the hate crime enhancement in Apprendi transformed a second degree offense into a first degree offense under the New Jersey hate crime statute, the finding that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances trans forms a life sentence into a death sentence under the Maryland death penalty statute.””

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