Martinez Chavez v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 59 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 69 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2018 · most notably Harris v. Alabama (1995), Bivins v. State (1995)
4 federal appellate · 59 state decisions — followed in 10 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1827
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Ake v. Oklahoma · Rideout v. United States · Dobbert v. Florida · Spaziano v. Florida
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 69 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In order to sentence a defendant to death after the jury has recommended against death, the facts justifying a death sentence should be so clear and convincing that virtually no reasonable person could disagree that death was appropriate in light of the offender and his crime. A trial court cannot override the jury’s recommendation unless the facts meet this standard.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“An interpreter enables a non-English speaking defendant to understand the trial, provides a means of communication between the defendant and his attorney, and translates the defendant’s testimony if he testifies. The interpreter is necessary to implement fundamental notions of due process such as the right to be present at trial, the right to confront one’s accusers, and the right to counsel.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Arrieta v. State · Nur v. State“Notwithstanding that the sentence determination by the jury is not binding upon the judge, we do not regard it as a mere formality having no substantive value. If we did, error if any, in such regard [instructing jury about terms of years] could not be other than harmless. On the contrary, the recommendation of the jury is a very valuable contribution to the process, in that it comes from a group representative of the defendant’s peers, who are likely to reflect, collectively, the standards of the community.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.