Lambert v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 17 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he killing of a police officer in the course of duty is a most serious crime. Police officers routinely risk their lives in the sometimes high stakes gamble of protecting society. They do a job that we all want and need done, though few of us possess the bravery and skill to do. They ask for little in return, but they do ask for some protection. The General Assembly recognized this in enacting the statutory aggravator of Indiana Code § 35 — 50—2—9(b)(6).”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Tommy R. Pruitt v. State of Indiana · Salyers v. State

2. “Where we find an irregularity in a trial court's decision to impose the death sentence, this Court has various options, as correctly noted by the defendant. Among these are: 1) to remand to the trial court for a clarification or new sentencing determination; 2) to affirm the death sentence if the constitutional error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; and 3) to reweigh the proper aggravating and mitigating circumstances independently at the appellate level.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Lambert v. State

3. “Because the majority of the victim impact testimony given was irrelevant to the charged aggravator, it was improper and should not have been admitted.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Lambert v. State