Pierre v. Morris’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2001
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 state decisions
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
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Woodson v. North Carolina · Gardner 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In regard to the remaining contention that the death sentence can be mandato-rily imposed, such is without merit under the facts of this case for Pierre did pursue his right to offer evidence of mitigat ing circumstances and argued the issue to the jury. As we noted in Pierre, the matters which he offered in mitigation were “most minimal — even from the point of view of inference.” [[Image here]] We reaffirm our holding in Pierre that the statutory system under which the sentence of death was imposed does not violate the Constitutions of Utah or of the United States and that all claimed errors are without merit. Following said statutory procedure, and given the especially heinous nature of the murders in this case, no rational judge or jury could have returned a verdict of other than guilty, nor could they have determined other than that the aggravating circumstances thereof clearly outweighed those in mitigation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Andrews v. Morris“It is true that we have repeatedly declared that any claims of error or impropriety should be asserted in the regular procedure provided for on appeals and that, if that is not done, a writ of habeas corpus may not be used as a belated appeal. Nevertheless, howsoever desirable it may be to adhere to the rules, the law should not be so blind and unreasoning that where an injustice has resulted the victim should be without remedy. For that reason, as indicated in the cited eases, the writ should be available in rare cases, where it appears that there is a strong likelihood that there has been such unfairness, or failure to accord due process of law, that it would be wholly unconscionable not to reexamine the conviction.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Codianna v. Morris
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.