Cobb v. Wainwright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

37 federal appellate · 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 72 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “There is no question that the prosecutor in this case made an inflammatory argument. If the trial had been held in federal district court a number of his comments would have constituted more than adequate grounds for a mistrial. In a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 proceeding, however, the scope of review is a narrow one. The Supreme Court only recently ruled in Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637 , 94 S.Ct. 1868 , 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974), a case also involving charges of prejudicial prosecutorial comment, that not every trial error or infirmity which might on direct appeal call for application of supervisory powers correspondingly constitutes the denial of due process necessary to support a grant of relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 .... Unless a specific guarantee of the Bill of Rights is involved, it must be shown that the remarks were so prejudicial that they rendered the trial in question fundamentally unfair. 416 U.S. at 643 , 94 S.Ct. 1868 . Here the claim is simply that the prosecutor’s remarks so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the conviction a denial of due process. Given the circumstances of this case, we conclude, and our conclusion is made easier by the strength of the evidence against Cobb, that no prejudice amounting to such a denial of constitutional due process was shown. Unlike Houston v. Estelle, 569 F.2d 372, 376-84 (5th Cir. 1978), a Section 2254 proceeding in which we did reverse a conviction for prosecutorial misconduct, this is not a case in which the pro”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Darden v. Wainwright

2. “In his zeal to obtain a death sentence, the prosecutor made several clearly objectionable, and objected to, remarks. For example, at one point in his argument, the prosecutor resorted to the Bible. He told the jury that under its teachings there was no reason to show the defendants mercy.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Larry Romine v. Frederick J. Head

3. “well established that in reviewing prosecutorial comments for possible prejudice, a court must not consider the comments in isolation. The comments must be evaluated in the context not only of the prosecutor's entire closing argument but of the trial as a whole.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Darden v. Wainwright