Franklin v. Lynaugh’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
268 federal appellate · 13 district · 635 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,214 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Penry v. Lynaugh (1989), Boyde v. California (1990)
268 federal appellate · 13 district · 635 state decisions — followed in 29 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedFranklin v. Lynaugh (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Eddings v. Oklahoma · Woodson v. North Carolina · Marks v. United States
Cited together with Lockett v. Ohio · Penry v. Lynaugh · Eddings v. Oklahoma · Strickland v. Washington · Jurek v. Texas
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 1,214 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“relevance to the defendant's moral culpability beyond the scope of the special verdict questions.”
69 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Our edict [in Lockett and Eddings ] in no way mandates reconsideration by capital juries, in the sentencing phase, of their 'residual doubts' over a defendant's guilt. Such lingering doubts are not over any aspect of petitioner’s 'character,' 'record,' or a 'circumstance of the offense.’”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Finding a constitutional right to rely on a guilt-phase jury’s “residual doubts” about innocence when the defense presents its mitigating case in the penalty phase is arguably inconsistent with the common practice of allowing penalty-only trials on remand of cases where a death sentence — but not the underlying conviction — is struck down on appeal. In fact, this Court has, on several previous occasions, suggested such a method of proceeding on remand. Moreover, petitioner himself, in suggesting the appropriate relief in this case, asked only that he be “resentenced in a proceeding that comports with the requirements of Lockett” — not that he be retried in full so as to have the benefit of any potential guilt-phase “residual doubts.” In sum, we are quite doubtful that such “penalty-only” trials are violative of a defendant’s Eighth Amendment rights. Yet such is the logical conclusion of petitioner’s claim of a constitutional right to argue “residual doubts” to a capital sentencing jury.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Holland v. Anderson · Blue 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.