Workman v. Bredesen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 state decisions

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

1. “[t]he method of execution in 37 of the 38 States that authorize capital sentences has evolved to make lethal injection the preferred method of carrying out a death sentence with only Nebraska clinging to electrocution.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Miller v. Parker · Miller v. Parker

2. “modern sensibilities have moved away from hanging, the firing squad, the gas chamber and electrocution as methods of carrying out a death sentence,”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Miller v. Parker · Miller v. Parker

3. “We thus do not have a situation where the State has any intent (or anything approaching intent) to inflict unnecessary pain; the complaint is that the State’s pain-avoidance procedure may fail because the executioners may make a mistake in implementing it. But no one has demonstrated that this problem has occurred in Tennessee in the past.... The risk of negligence in implementing a death-penalty procedure, particularly when the risk has not come to pass in the State, does not establish a cognizable Eighth Amendment claim. At some level, every execution procedure ever used contains risk that the individuars death will not be entirely pain free.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 499 F. Supp. 2d 1228 - Grayson v. Allen