Smith v. Balkcom’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

63 federal appellate · 1 district · 21 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 128 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “so strong that the results would permit no other inference but that they are the product of racially discriminatory intent or purpose.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McCleskey v. Kemp · Smith v. Kemp

2. “Appellant’s statistician sought to determine the total number of incidents involving homicide reported as having taken place in Georgia by a somewhat arbitrary (but accepted as statistically correct) adjustment for unreported incidents. He used Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHRs) submitted by Georgia law enforcement officers to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (He compiled a supplemental data base of those homicides associated with the commission of some other felony — one, but only one, of the aggravating circumstances under the statute____) The study then compares these reported incidents with death penalties ultimately imposed, after trial, in the state. No data is offered as to whether or not charges or indictments grew out of reported incidents or as to whether charges were for murder under aggravating circumstances, murder in which no aggravating circumstances were alleged, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, or other offenses. The data are not refined to select incidents in which mitigating circumstances were advanced or found or those cases in which evidence of aggravating circumstances was sufficient to warrant submission of the death penalty vel non to a jury. No incidents resulting in not guilty verdicts were removed from the data. The unsupported assumption is that all such variables were equally distributed, racially, sexually, offender and victim, throughout the SHRs. No conclusions of evidentiary value can be predicated upon such unsupported ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Ross v. Kemp

3. “untouched countless racially neutral variables.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Spencer v. Zant