Downs v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
1 federal appellate · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 22 later decisions — most recently December 2013
1 federal appellate · 19 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 Gregg v. Georgia · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Lockett v. Ohio · Proffitt v. Florida · Pesce v. United States
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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This Court finds that the Facts and the evidence do not support the Aggravating Circumstances in F.S. 921.141(5)(a), (b), (c), (e) and (g) in that this Capital Felony was not committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment, nor has the Defendant been previously convicted of another capital felony or of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person, nor did the Defendant knowingly create a great risk of death to many persons, nor was the capital felony committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or effecting an escape from custody, nor was the capital felony committed to disrupt or hinder the lawful exercise of any governmental function or enforcement of laws. The Court does find, as sufficient Aggravating Circumstances, that the capital felony was committed while the Defendant was fleeing the scene after committing arson in the deceased's trailer, and said flight from the scene was accomplished in the deceased's 1971 Chevrolet Van, as enumerated in F.S. 921.141(5)(d); that the capital felony was committed for pecuniary gain in that the evidence showed that the Defendant had asked the deceased many times for money for his religious cult, and after the homicide a sum of money was missing from the deceased's trailer and was found in the Defendant's possession, F.S. 921.141(5)(f); and that the capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel in that the deceased had a total of twenty seven (27) stab wounds on his body, both ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.