State v. Mercer’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 79 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 99 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2015 · most notably Wainwright v. Witt (1985), Connecticut v. Johnson (1983)
15 federal appellate · 79 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 Jackson v. Virginia · Gregg v. Georgia · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio
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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) Whether the sentence of death was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor; and”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“"With regard to the sentence, the supreme court shall determine: "(1) Whether the sentence of death was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor; and "(2) Whether the evidence supports the jury's or judge's finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance as enumerated in section 565.012; and "(3) Whether the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant."”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Baker · State v. Blair“[t]he offense was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, or depravity of mind.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Battle · State v. LaRette
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.