44 Cal. 3d 1127 - People v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 130 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 145 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “THE COURT: It has come to the court’s attention that there is a possibility that some remark might have been made by the defendant that was heard by the jury on the date that the jury returned its verdict at the guilt phase. Do you have any information concerning that? MR. BRAMHALL: I do. THE COURT: What is that? MR. BRAMHALL: He did utter a statement as we were concluding. THE COURT: What was that statement? MR. BRAMHALL: “I’m going to get each and every one of you mother fuckers.” THE COURT: Did you personally hear him make that statement? MR. BRAMHALL: I did not. I saw him mouthing it; but I did not hear it. THE COURT: In other words, were you able to make out the words? MR. BRAMHALL: I was not. One of the other jurors was. THE COURT: All right. Did that play any part in the deliberations of this case concerning the penalty? MR. BRAMHALL: It did not. THE COURT: Was there any discussion of that comment at any time during the penalty phase of this trial? MR. BRAMHALL: No. Not until after the verdict had been reached. THE COURT: You’ve now reached a verdict? MR. BRAMHALL: We have.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 48 F. Supp. 2d 979 - Williams v. Calderon · Williams v. Woodford

2. ““First, the [Deere\ court determined that counsel’s failure to present evidence in mitigation introduced error into the penalty proceeding. “ ‘To permit a defendant convicted of a potentially capital crime to bar his counsel from introducing mitigating evidence at the penalty phase . . . would . . . prevent this court from discharging its constitutional and statutory duty to review a judgment of death upon the complete record of the case, because a significant portion of the evidence of the appropriateness of the penalty would be missing. “ ‘This deficiency of the record implicates another paramount concern of the state: “in capital cases . . . the state has a strong interest in reducing the risk of mistaken judgments.” . . . Since 1976 the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the qualitative difference between death and all other penalties demands a correspondingly higher degree of reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment. (Woodson v. North Carolina (1976) 428 U.S. 280, 305 [ 49 L.Ed.2d 944, 961 , 96 S.Ct. 2978 ] (plur. opn.).) And since 1978 the high court has insisted that the sentencer must be permitted to consider any aspect of the defendant’s character and record as an independently mitigating factor. (Lockett v. Ohio (1978) 438 U.S. 586, 604-605 [ 57 L.Ed.2d 973, 989-990 , 98 S.Ct. 2954 ] (plur. opn. of Burger, C. J.).) “ ‘To allow a capital defendant to prevent the introduction of mitigating evidence on his behalf”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 51 Cal. 3d 471 - People v. Sanders

3. ““Oglesby testified that in late April defendant asked him about the chances of escaping from Atascadero or Patton, where he believed he might be sent. He later asked Oglesby if he wished to be included in an escape plan and Oglesby indicated he did. Defendant outlined a plan complete with drawings that involved escaping while being transferred from jail to court. According to the plan, as summarized by Oglesby, two people from ‘the outside’ would disarm the officer driving the bus. Defendant also planned to kill a person on the bus who was to testify against him, as well as the two officers who would accompany the bus. Defendant later modified the plan to include blowing up the bus in order to prevent the authorities from quickly determining who had escaped. “Oglesby received two notes from defendant, one stating that a female visitor was not the girlfriend who was to be involved in the escape and the second stating that a female visitor had a new shotgun for him. A few days after receiving the notes Oglesby told Lt. Fitzgerald what he knew about the escape. “After talking to Lt. Fitzgerald, Oglesby again communicated with defendant about an escape. In one note defendant stated that someone on the outside had obtained dynamite for him. Another note asked whether they should delay their escape because his brother had been sentenced to three months for an earlier attempt to help him escape from jail. Oglesby testified he told defendant that it probably would be better to escape”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 7 Cal. 4th 572 - In Re Williams