Lackey v. Texas’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 3 district · 25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 86 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Ring v. Arizona (2002), 192 Ill. 2d 348 - People v. Simms (2000)
26 federal appellate · 3 district · 25 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 Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Harmelin v. Michigan · Medley · 6 Cal. 3d 628 - People v. Anderson
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 86 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“At the moment that [a proposed execution] ceases realistically to further these purposes [of deterrence and the coherent expression of moral outrage], the emerging question is whether its imposition in such circumstances would violate the Eighth Amendment. It is my view that it would, for its imposition would then be the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State would be patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Ceja v. Stewart“the acceptable state interest in retribution has arguably been satisfied by the severe punishment already inflicted,”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Allen v. Ornoski“the additional deterrent effect from an actual execution now ... seems minimal,”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Allen v. Ornoski
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.