Gray v. Lucas’s Empirical Analysis
677 F.2d 1086 · 1982
Citation profile
75 federal appellate · 2 district · 56 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 215 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2016 · most notably Gray v. Lucas, Warden, Et Al. (1983), Washington v. Strickland (1982)
75 federal appellate · 2 district · 56 state decisions — followed in 14 states
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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2106
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Wainwright v. Sykes · Gregg v. Georgia · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Furman v. Georgia
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 215 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[e]very mandatory element of proof is assigned to the prosecution. Neither the burden of production nor the burden of proof ever shifts to the defendant.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Gray claims that the Mississippi Supreme Court's comparative review of death sentences is flawed since the court only compared Gray's case with those cases where the death sentence had been imposed and not with all the cases where it could have been imposed. Because the Supreme Court has rejected a similar argument in Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 , 258-59 fn. 16, 96 S.Ct. 2960 , 2969-70 fn. 16, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976), we reject this claim as well.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Gray v. Lucas · Jordan v. State“In order to impose a death sentence, you must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the totality of the aggravating circumstances outweigh the totality of the mitigating circumstances. If you are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, you must return a verdict of life imprisonment.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Hill v. State · Rieber v. State
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.