47 Cal. 2d 749 - People v. Friend’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 85 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 92 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2000 · most notably United States v. Jackson (1968), McGautha v. California (1971)
3 federal appellate · 85 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 Williams v. People of State of New York · Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Sullivan v. Ashe · People v. Chessman · 42 Cal. 2d 200 - People v. Byrd · 47 Cal. 2d 348 - People v. Crooker
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 92 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“considerations of the several objectives of punishment, of the deterrence of crime, of the protection of society, of the desirability of stern retribution, or of sympathy or clemency ... or of the irrevocableness of an executed sentence of death, or an apprehension that explanatory facts may exist which have not been brought to light ....”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“We note ... that the trend is toward the more liberal admission of evidence pertinent only to the selection of penalty. For example, it has become established practice to advise the jury of the facts concerning the possibility of pardon, commutation, parole, etc. [Citations.] Obviously, the law pertaining to pardons, commutations and paroles has not the slightest relevancy to the issue of guilt; it is pertinent only as a fact which may be considered in selecting the penalty to be imposed; i.e., it is evidence which may be considered as relevant to the 'aggravation' or 'mitigation' of punishment in the sense in which those terms have been used in relation to the selection of penalty. ... [P. 767 [13].] They [the jury] should be told ... that beyond prescribing the two alternative penalties the law itself provides no standard for their guidance in the selection of the punishment; ... that in deciding the question whether the accused should be put to death or sentenced to imprisonment for life it is within their discretion alone to determine, each for himself, how far he will accord weight to the considerations of the several objectives of punishment, of the deterrence of crime, of the protection of society, of the desirability of stern retribution, or of sympathy or clemency, ...”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“For some years many courts and writers on criminal law and penology have held that the purpose of legally adjudicated punishment is not or should not be vengeance, but rather deterrence of the offender and other prospective offenders from crime, ...”
2 later decisions 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.