Cheshire v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

58 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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “only in torturous murders — those that evince extreme and outrageous depravity as exemplified either by the desire to inflict a high degree of pain or utter indifference to or enjoyment of the suffering of another.”

   12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 25 So. 3d 536 - Orme v. State · Rimmer v. State

2. “Cheshire alleges that the trial court improperly qualified a man named Allen Miller as an expert in blood-spatter evidence. It appears Miller's qualifications consisted of a single forty-hour course, three prior qualifications as an expert and his own field experience. While we agree that these qualifications are open to reasonable question, we nevertheless believe that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing this expert testimony. Any deficiencies in an expert's qualifications, experience and testimony may be aired on cross-examination, provided there is some reasonable basis to qualify the expert. We believe such a basis existed on this record.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 863 So. 2d 169 - Anderson v. State · 932 F. Supp. 2d 1257 - Correll v. Secretary, Department of Corrections

3. “the trial court's role is solely to determine whether the evidence in the record was sufficient to form a basis upon which reasonable jurors could rely in recommending life imprisonment”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Keen v. State · 894 So. 2d 178 - Weaver v. State