44 Cal. 3d 635 - People v. Hendricks’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 109 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 130 later decisions — most recently December 2017 · most notably 47 Cal. 3d 1194 - People v. Johnson (1989), 49 Cal. 3d 991 - People v. Lang (1989)
18 federal appellate · 109 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 Witherspoon v. Illinois · Furman v. Georgia · Wainwright v. Witt · Caldwell v. Mississippi · Blanton v. General Electric Credit Corp.
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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““First, we pointed out that the jury might be confused about the nature of the weighing process. As we observed: ‘[T]he word “weighing” is a metaphor for a process which by nature is incapable of precise description. The word connotes a mental balancing process, but certainly not one which calls for a mere mechanical counting of factors on each side of an imaginary “scale,” or the arbitrary assignment of “weights” to any of them. Each juror is free to assign whatever moral or sympathetic value he deems appropriate to each and all of the various factors he is permitted to consider.’ [Citation.] “Second, we were concerned in Brown that the unadorned instruction’s phrase, ‘the trier of fact . . . shall impose a sentence of death if [it] concludes that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances’ (italics added), could mislead the jury as to the ultimate question it was called on to answer in determining which sentence to impose. Although the quoted phrase could be understood to require a juror (i) to determine whether ‘the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances’ without regard to the juror’s personal view as to the appropriate sentence, and then (ii) to impose a sentence of death if aggravation outweighs mitigation even if the juror does not personally believe death is the appropriate sentence under all the circumstances, we concluded in Brown that the statute was not intended to, and should not, be interpreted in that fashion. In”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“`... Shall, not may, not might, not maybe. It is very explicit. If the aggravating evidence outweighs the mitigating evidence you shall return a verdict of death'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Other-crimes evidence may be used to impeach the testimony of an expert witness. [Citations.] Because an expert witness may be cross-examined more extensively and searchingly than a lay witness, the court has broad discretion to admit such evidence for impeachment. [Citations.] [¶] No abuse of discretion appears here. Because Dr. Carson's 'opinion ... was at odds with the evidence introduced by the prosecution,' the prosecutor was entitled to 'attempt to discredit' it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.