White v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

25 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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"... it was made abundantly clear in Witherspoon that the decision reached therein had no bearing on the right of the prosecution to challenge for cause any prospective juror who stated that he would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment without regard to the evidence which might be developed at the trial or that his attitude toward the death penalty would prevent him from making an impartial decision as to the defendant's guilt."”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hawkins v. State · Esquivel v. State

2. ““We cannot believe that Witherspoon v. Illinois, supra, requires certain formal answers and none other. We surely feel that the test of Witherspoon is ‘not to be applied with the hypertechnical and archaic approach of a 19th century pleading book, but with realism and rationality.’ “We are aware of a large number of death penalty cases which have recently been reversed in memorandum opinions by the United States Supreme Court 3 [Footnote 3 citing cases omitted]. While it is difficult, if not impossible to synthesize a rule from those opinions, we have concluded that the voir dire in the instant case and answers of the veniremen are more unequivocal than those which were set forth in the cases which have been reversed.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hernandez v. State · Vanderbilt v. State

3. ““In the light of the ‘cold’ record before us, it would be difficult to say whether venireman Barbour unequivocally stated that she would automatically vote against imposition of the death penalty; however, when she was faced with the question of whether she could take an active part as a juror in the consideration and assessment of the death penalty in a given case, she responded that she did not ‘think so.’ Her answer was tantamount to a declaration that her personal qualms about the imposition of the death penalty would prevent her from being an impartial juror in a case in which the range of punishment included the death penalty.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hughes v. State · Vanderbilt v. State