Short v. Sirmons’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate ·

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

1. “Improper prosecutorial argument will only warrant federal habeas relief if it renders a petitioner's trial or sentencing fundamentally unfair. To establish that a prosecutor's remarks were so inflammatory that they prejudiced substantial rights, a petitioner must overcome a high threshold: he or she must demonstrate either persistent and pronounced misconduct or that the evidence was so insubstantial that absent the remarks, the jury would not have imposed the death penalty.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Hooks v. Workman

2. “[Counsel] did not challenge its admission until after the entire statement was read to the jury. The absence of a contemporaneous objection deprived the trial court of the ability to curtail any troubling portions of the statement. Counsel’s argument that he could not foresee the extreme emotional impact of the victim impact statement is particularly unconvincing when there is but one impact statement to be read by a family member.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Brown v. Sirmons