State v. Hutton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 77 state decisions

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

1. “[w]hether, at the time of committing the offense, the offender, because of a mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law[.]”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Hutton v. Mitchell · State v. Lewis

2. “The trial court’s instructions to the jury correctly explained that the jury was required to weigh the aggravating circumstances against the mitigating factors, and could impose a sentence of death only if the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating factors. Unfortunately, the court failed to tell the jury what the “aggravating circumstances” were. No jury (or anyone else) can weigh aggravating circumstances against mitigating factors without knowing what the aggravating circumstances are. This weighing process is the very purpose of the sentencing phase of a capital trial.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Hutton v. Mitchell

3. “Without any instruction [at sentencing] defining “aggravating circumstances,” the jury was left “with untrammeled discretion to impose or withhold the death penalty.” Gregg v. Georgia (1976), 428 U.S. 153 , 196, at fn. 47, 96 S.Ct. 2909 , 2936, at fn. 47, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 . This, the United States Constitution forbids.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Hutton v. Mitchell