445 F. Supp. 647 - Smith v. Estelle’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 1 district · 13 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Even a cursory review of the psychiatric literature reveals that psychiatrists differ widely in their diagnosis of the same patients. The testimony of psychiatric experts is receiving increased judicial scrutiny because of its unreliable and invalid nature. See United States ex rel. Wax v. Pate, 298 F.Supp. 164 (N.D.Ill.1967), affirmed 409 F.2d 498 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 830 , 90 S.Ct. 83 , 24 L.Ed.2d 81 (1969). Cf. Specht v. Patterson, 386 U.S. 605 , 87 S.Ct. 1209 , 18 L.Ed.2d 326 (1967). “This judicial scrutiny reflects skepticism among experts in the field itself. In 1969 Professor Dershowitz reviewed studies on the predictions of anti-social conduct and concluded: ‘ . . . that psychiatrists are rather inaccurate predictors — inaccurate in an absolute sense and even less accurate when compared with other professionals, such as psychologists, social workers and correctional officials and when compared to actuarial devices, such as prediction or experience tables. Even more significant for legal purposes, it seems that psychiatrists are particularly prone to one type of error — over prediction. They tend to predict antisocial conduct in many instances where it would not, in fact, occur. Indeed, our research suggests that for every correct psychiatric prediction of violence, there are numerous erroneous predictions. That is, among every group of inmates presently confined on the basis of psychiatric predictions of violence, there are only a few who would, and man”

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

2. “(1) whether the conduct of the defendant that caused the death of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result;”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Hammett v. Texas

3. “[T]he circumstances surrounding the State's presentation of Dr. Henry's testimony at the punishment stage of trial was grossly unfair and the defendant was thus denied due process of law,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Hammett v. Texas