501 F. Supp. 317 - Goodwin v. Balkcom’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate ·

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

1. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, you having found the defendant guilty of the offense of murder and armed robbery, it is now your duty to determine within the limits prescribed by law, the penalty that shall be imposed as punishment for that offense. In reaching this determination, you are authorized to consider all of the evidence received by you in open court in both phases of this trial. You are authorized to consider all of the facts and circumstances of the case. Under the laws of this state, every person guilty of the offense of murder or armed robbery shall be punished by life in the penitentiary or death by electrocution. And under the laws of this state, every person guilty of the offense of armed robbery shall be punished by life in the penitentiary or death by electrocution or by from one to twenty years in prison. In the event that your verdict is life in prison, the punishment the defendant would receive would be imprisonment in the penitentiary for and during the remainder of his natural life. If that be your verdict, you would add to the verdict already found by you, an additional verdict as follows: “And we fix his punishment as life imprisonment.” If you decide — excuse me, let me begin again. If you should decide to sentence the defendant for the offense of armed robbery, then the form of your verdict would be, “We, the Jury, sentence the defendant to ‘blank’ years,” and where the court has used the term ‘blank’, you would insert the term of years to which ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Goodwin v. Balkcom