Espinosa v. Florida’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
69 federal appellate · 17 district · 421 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 628 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2021 · most notably Tuilaepa v. California (1994), Lambrix v. Singletary (1997)
69 federal appellate · 17 district · 421 state decisions — followed in 14 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 Furman v. Georgia · Godfrey v. Georgia · Maynard v. Cartwright · Walton v. Arizona · Mills v. Maryland
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 628 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“especially wicked, evil, atrocious or cruel”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Moeller · State v. Rhines“so vague as to leave the sentencer without sufficient guidance for determining the presence or absence of the factor.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“if a weighing State decides to place capital-sentencing authority in two actors rather than one, neither actor must be permitted to weigh invalid aggravating circumstances.”
5 later decisions 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.