Menendez v. Terhune’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 7 district · 3 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Petitioners’ focus on this evidence, however, is misplaced. Taken at face value, this background evidence served only to explain why the brothers might have had an unreasonable fear of their parents at the moment they killed them. At most, the evidence illustrated that Erik and Lyle feared that their parents had the ca- parity to and might, at some point, harm them. Erik’s testimony about his general fear in the days leading up to the murder does not provide any evidence that, at the moment he shotgunned his parents to death, he feared he was in imminent peril.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. White

2. “In addition, a state trial court's finding that the evidence does not support a claim of imperfect self-defense is entitled to a presumption of correctness[.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Davis v. Johnson

3. “Any error in [a] state court's determination of whether state law allowed for an instruction ... cannot form the basis for federal habeas relief.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Davis v. Johnson