Holly v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 78 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 90 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Our precedents make clear that a State's capital sentencing scheme must ... genuinely narrow the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty. When the purpose of a statutory aggravating circumstance is to enable the sentencer to distinguish those who deserve capital punishment from those who do not, the circumstance must provide a principled basis for doing so. If the sentencer fairly could conclude that an aggravating circumstance applies to every defendant eligible for the death penalty, the circumstance is constitutionally infirm.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 682 So. 2d 340 - Brown v. State · 697 So. 2d 1123 - Wilcher v. State

2. “(2) The killing of a human being without the authority of law by any means or in any manner shall be capital murder in the following cases: [[Image here]] (e) When done with or without any design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of rape, burglary, kidnapping, arson, robbery, sexual battery, unnatural intercourse with any child under the age of twelve (12), or nonconsen-sual unnatural intercourse with mankind, or in any attempt to commit such felonies....”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Nelson v. State · McBeath v. State

3. “`discretion of the trial judge runs toward almost unlimited admissibility regardless of the gruesomeness, repetitiveness, and the extenuation of probative value.'”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 872 So. 2d 1 - Brawner v. State · 913 So. 2d 913 - Le v. State