Smith v. Francis, Warden’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
149 federal appellate · 6 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 185 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2017 · most notably Schreiber Distributing Co. v. Serv-Well Furniture Co. (1986), United States v. Mason (1990)
149 federal appellate · 6 district · 5 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 Gregg v. Georgia · City of Cleburne Texas v. Cleburne Living Center · Furman v. Georgia · Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman · Enmund v. Florida
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 185 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Petitioner is mentally retarded, with an IQ of 65 and mental abilities roughly equivalent to those of a ten-year old child. He was tried for the murder of one Dan Turner, a friend of the petitioner and his family. There were no eyewitnesses to the crime. The petitioner had gone in to Turner’s grocery store to buy some cigarettes. The petitioner testified at trial that he grabbed Turner when the latter opened the cash register. Turner reacted by picking up a hammer, and the petitioner then stabbed him and hit him with the hammer after it fell from the victim’s hand. Petitioner took money from the cash register and Turner’s wallet and fled. Petitioner turned himself in to the police and gave a lengthy statement in which he admitted stabbing Turner. When asked about the reasons for his actions, petitioner stated that he had wanted to get money. At trial, however, petitioner stated that he had not entered the store intending to rob Turner, and did not know why he had grabbed Turner as the latter was getting petitioner’s cigarettes. A psychiatrist who examined the petitioner stated that the petitioner showed considerable remorse in discussing the murder. Petitioner testified at trial that he ‘didn’t mean to kill Mr. Dan,’ but had gotten ‘carried away’ after he saw the victim wielding the hammer in what petitioner interpreted as a threatening manner. There was evidence that the petitioner was under considerable stress in the days proceeding the murder. Petitioner’s counsel argu”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Smith v. Kemp
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.