United States v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis
495 F.3d 951 · 2007
Citation profile
25 federal appellate · 1 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 45 later decisions — most recently July 2024 · most notably Cox v. State (2011), McKinney v. Ryan (2015)
25 federal appellate · 1 district · 7 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2 · 21 U.S.C. § 846 (§ 406 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 848 (§ 408 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Crawford v. Washington · Doyle v. Ohio · Wainwright v. Witt · Donnelly v. DeChristoforo · Darden v. Wainwright
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 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“No matter how small [the defendant's] cell may be, it's going to be larger than the coffin that [the victims] are laying [sic] in now”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Johnson argues that the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution precludes the application of the forfeiture by wrongdoing doctrine in her case because the rule of evidence codifying the doctrine, [Fed. R.Evid.] 804(b)(6), was enacted four years after the murders took place. The argument lacks merit because [Fed. R.Evid.] 804(b)(6) reflects legal principles that were well and widely recognized at the time of the murders. . . . . Moreover, even if the enactment of [Fed.R.Evid.] 804(b)(6) had enlarged the category of admissible evidence in a criminal case, we doubt that this would constitute an ex post facto violation. The Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits, inter alia, the application of any "law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender." Laws that "`simply enlarge the class of persons who may be competent to testify in criminal cases' do not offend the ex post facto prohibition because they do not ... alter the degree or lessen the amount or measure of proof necessary to convict the defendant." Accordingly, even if the enactment of [Fed.R.Evid.] 804(b)(6) had enlarged the class of admissible hearsay, this expansion would not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. We thus find unavailing Johnson's ex post facto objection to [Fed.R.Evid.] 804(b)(6). [ Id. at 970-71 (internal citations omitted).]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“We regret to observe that in death-penalty case after death-penalty case, Oklahoma prosecutors have made speeches to the jury making light of the penalty of life imprisonment to demonstrate that the only proper punishment for a defendant’s crime is death. As we have said many times, it is prosecutorial misconduct for the prosecution to compare the plight of the victim with the life of the defendant in prison____ “It is of vital importance to the defendant and to the community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion,” ... and comparisons such as those made here call into question the integrity of the criminal justice system.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.