684 So. 2d 591 - Catchings v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 50 later decisions — most recently September 2015 · most notably Jordan v. State (2001), Galloway v. State (2013)
2 federal appellate · 48 state decisions
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
Relies on McClain v. State · 503 So. 2d 803 - Wetz v. State · 451 So. 2d 743 - Neal v. State · Heidel v. State · Forrestine D. Lemaire, by and Through Her Conservator, Howard C. Lemaire, and Howard C. Lemaire v. United States
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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[E]very murder done with deliberate design to effect the death of another human being is by definition done in the commission of an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved heart, regardless of human life.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“a reasonable degree of medical certainty.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Jordan v. State · Galloway v. State“Manslaughter is "[t]he killing of a human being, without malice, in the heat of passion, but in a cruel or unusual manner, or by the use of a dangerous weapon, without authority of § law, and not in necessary self-defense." Miss. Code Ann. 97-3-35 . There is no evidence in the record that Catchings acted in the heat of passion. Catchings' own testimony was that he went outside the Short Stop to talk to Cassidy and that he had no intention of harming Cassidy. Catchings also testified that, once outside, Cassidy waved a knife at him, cursed him, and threatened him. It appears from the record that the defense raised by Catchings at trial was self-defense. In which case, there is no reasonable factual scenario under which the jury may reasonably have concluded, [under the deliberate design instruction], that [the appellant's] premeditated design to kill, if any existed in his mind but for an instant before the fatal act. On the prosecution's interpretation of the evidence, the premeditated or deliberate design existed well before the [slaying]. On the defense theory, it never existed. In this context, we declare the granting of [the deliberate design instruction] as harmless error. Blanks , 542 So.2d at 227 . Thus, the manslaughter instruction was not warranted in this case. See Id . Therefore, the giving of the deliberate design instruction was harmless error.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.