Tison v. Arizona’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
411 federal appellate · 62 district · 1,198 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,061 later decisions (67 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Ring v. Arizona (2002), Harmelin v. Michigan (1991)
411 federal appellate · 62 district · 1,198 state decisions — followed in 44 states
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 · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Morissette v. United States · Solem v. Helm
Cited together with Enmund v. Florida · Strickland v. Washington · Gregg v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Zant v. Stephens
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 2,061 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“major participation in the felony committed, combined with reckless indifference to human life, is sufficient to satisfy the Enmund culpability requirement.”
94 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing take place or that lethal force will be employed.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Torres v. Mullin · Nichols v. Scott“The heart of the retribution rationale is that a criminal sentence must be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal offender.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Penry v. Lynaugh · Ex Parte Bower
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.