556 So. 2d 744 - Ex Parte Williams’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"The Court of Criminal Appeals reasoned that, because the trial court, as the ultimate sentencing authority, did not consider illegal evidence ('the incorrect aggravating circumstance') in the sentencing *Page 1176 hearing, the trial court's error in permitting the jury to consider such evidence in arriving at its recommendation of the death sentence was harmless. The basic flaw in this rationale is that it totally discounts the significance of the jury's role in the sentencing process. "The legislatively mandated role of the jury in returning an advisory verdict, based upon its consideration of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, can not be abrogated by the trial court's errorless exercise of its equally mandated role as the ultimate sentencing authority. Each part of the sentencing process is equally mandated by the statute (§§ 13A-5-46 , -47(e)); and the errorless application by the court of its part does not cure the erroneous application by the jury of its part. For a case consistent with our holding, see Johnson v. State , 502 So.2d 877 (Ala.Cr.App. 1987). To hold otherwise is to hold that the sentencing role of the jury, as required by statute, counts for nothing so long as the court's exercise of its role is without error. "We emphasize that our holding that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in its application of the harmless error rule is based upon independent state law grounds and upon statutory construction. We reverse as to the judgment of sentence and re”

   7 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brownlee v. Haley · Knight v. State

2. “"`[T]he trial court improperly instructed the jury, during the sentencing phase of the trial, that they could consider the fact that the capital offense was committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment as an aggravating circumstance, as provided in § 13A-5-490), Code of Alabama (1975). It was later established at the sentencing hearing, however, that the appellant was not on probation, nor was he on parole, at the time that the crime was committed.'"”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ex Parte Stephens