State v. Bennett’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 7 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[I]t appears Appellant’s objection to the hospital photographs was based on Rule 403, SCRE (excluding relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice). Finally, Appellant objected to the introduction the victim’s dream on the grounds of relevance. Before this Court, however, Appellant did not couch these objections in terms of relevance or a Rule 403 analysis. Instead, the only theory Appellant presented to this Court on this issue was that this evidence should have been excluded as impermissible victim impact evidence of prior crimes. Because the evidence in this case was not victim impact evidence, Appellant’s argument must fail. When asked to do so, we will consider arguments regarding the types of evidence of prior crimes that should and should not be admissible in a capital sentencing proceeding. However, we feel that the delicate task of balancing the duty to conduct a sentencing inquiry “broad in scope,” Dawson [v. Delaware ], 503 U.S. [159] at 164, 112 S.Ct. 1093 [ 117 L.Ed.2d 309 (1992)], against the need to protect a capital defendant from unfair prejudice and prevent a capital sentencing proceeding from transmuting into a sentencing referendum on all of the defendant’s prior crimes is only properly performed when that case is presented. Such a case would no doubt involve considerations of when the introduction of evidence renders a proceeding so unfair as to violate due process, see Payne [v. Tennessee ], 501 U”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 170 F. Supp. 3d 851 - Bennett v. Stirling

2. “[T]he trial court properly determined that [Bennett’s] size and strength were probative of the aggravating circumstance of physical torture, which the [trial] court charged to the jury. In this regard, the Solicitor’s use of the term “King Kong” was not suggestive of a giant black gorilla who abducts a white woman, but rather, descriptive of [Bennett’s] size and stoength as they related to his past crimes.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Bennett v. Stirling