Williams v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
85 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 86 later decisions — most recently July 2018 · most notably State v. Smith (1997), 645 So. 2d 829 - Chase v. State (1994)
85 state decisions — followed in 18 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 Chambers v. Mississippi · Stephan v. State · Peterson v. State · 473 So. 2d 452 - Winters v. State · Moffett v. State
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.
“The jurors are representatives of the community in one sense, but they are not to vote in a representative capacity. Each juror is to apply the law to the evidence and vote accordingly. The issue which each juror must resolve is not whether or not he or she wishes to "send a message" but whether or not he or she believes that the evidence showed the defendant to be guilty of the crime charged. The jury is an arm of the State but it is not an arm of the prosecution. The State includes both the prosecution and the accused. The function of the jury is to weigh the evidence and determine the facts. When the prosecution wishes to send a message they should employ Western Union. Mississippi jurors are not messenger boys.”
23 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Shelley v. State · Harris v. State“We have repeatedly stressed that the necessary transcripts are to be made a part of the record, and that the appellant bears the burden of presenting a record which is sufficient to undergird his assignments of error.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Rowland v. State · Eason v. State“[b]y your vote, you can make the statement clearly, steadfastly, and unequivocally that law or [sic] order exists for everyone in Harrison County.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Wiley v. State · Eason 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.