Ocker v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2009 · most notably Collins v. Youngblood (1990), Boulware v. State (1976)
2 federal appellate · 23 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 · Kelley v. United States · Brumfield v. State · State v. Laws · Darden v. State
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Specifically, we hold that a sentence of death cannot be carried out if the jury that imposed or recommended it was chosen by excluding veniremen for cause simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against its infliction. No defendant can constitutionally be put to death at the hands of a tribunal so selected."”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Evans v. State · Loudres v. State“"Thus ... the alternative punishment is not fixed by law, but encompasses a wide range. If this Court were to reduce the sentence to life imprisonment we would be assessing punishment as we saw fit, not as required by law. We would be performing a function which properly belongs to the jury. If our statutes provided for a fixed punishment in lieu of the death penalty, the situation would be closely akin to the cases in which the punishment is absolutely fixed, and in which this Court has assessed punishment."”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Evans v. State“"Thus the statute does not provide for modification of punishment, nor do we feel that it may be inferred. In that the statute provides for reformation and correction, we feel that we are limited to those powers. (Art. 5, § 5 of the Texas Constitution, Vernon's Ann.St. restricts the jurisdiction of this Court to the extent provided by statute.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Evans v. State
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.