State v. Rojas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 122 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 125 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “First, the language of the California statute is different from that of the Illinois statute. The California statute permits the imposition of the death penalty when the jury finds that the defendant committed murder "during the commission or attempted commission of" one of the several enumerated felonies. We think that this language contemplates a shorter time frame than does the "in the course of" language found in the Illinois statute. That is, we think that the Illinois statute recognizes that the crime of murder is not necessarily complete when the victim's heart stops beating, but rather the crime continues throughout the time that the perpetrator conceals the crime and flees the scene. Therefore, the crimes of arson, aggravated arson and murder in this case sufficiently overlapped to support the jury's finding that the murder occurred in the course of the other felonies. Second, we do not think that the portion of the Illinois death penalty statute under which defendant was found eligible is designed only to apply to murders that "advance an independent felonious purpose." The distinction between murder facilitating arson and arson facilitating murder, which defendant raises, is not determinative. We cannot say, as did the California Supreme Court in interpreting its own statute, that our legislature intended that this portion of the death penalty statute apply only to cases in which the defendant kills in the furtherance of another crime. The language of the Illinois ”

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

2. “[T]he victim of a robbery, killed just prior to the robber's carrying off [his] property, is nonetheless the victim of an aggravated robbery. The victim need not be alive at the time of asportation. A robber cannot avoid the effect of the felony-murder rule by first killing a victim, watching [him] die, and then stealing [his] property after the death.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Betts, Unpublished Decision (10-18-2007)

3. “'while' means that 'the killing must be directly associated with the [felony] as part of one continuous occurrence.' " Id. at ¶ 56, quoting Cooper at 179- 80. Accordingly, " '[t]he term "while”

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