State v. Gregory’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “black defendants were four and a half times more likely to be sentenced to death than similarly situated white defendants,”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Scherf · Fry v. Lopez

2. “[a]t its heart, ... will always be a subjective judgment as to whether a particular death sentence fairly represents the values inherent in [any given] sentencing scheme for [the most depraved forms of] murder.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Fry v. Lopez

3. “meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Fry v. Lopez