Greenwell v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “On Tuesday, August 1, 1989, the nude body of Debbie Thompson was found on the living room floor of her apartment in Evansville, Indiana. The condition and position of the body strongly suggested a sexual assault; it subsequently was discovered she had been strangled to death with “something flat, either a forearm or possibly a crook of an elbow” and had suffered numerous stab wounds, both pre-and post-mortem, including one to the vagina. It also was discovered that certain personal possessions were missing from the apartment, including a stereo sound system, a VCR, a microwave oven, and a jewelry box. The victim’s husband had left for two weeks of annual training with the Indiana National Guard the previous Saturday, and that evening Debbie was visited in her apartment by appellant and his girl friend Kenya Mattingly who lived together a half-block away. Kenya was hearing-impaired and dependent primarily upon sign language to communicate with others. When appellant and Debbie began conversing through speech, Kenya, noting the absence of Debbie’s husband, concluded Debbie was attempting to “date” appellant and in an outburst of frustration initiated a confrontation with Debbie during which she struck her on the head several times with a plastic table leg. Kenya testified that at some point, appellant was drawn into the affray and he too began assaulting the victim, performing cunnilingus on her, stabbing her, ultimately strangling her to death with his forearm and ejaculating ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Greenwell v. State