696 So. 2d 709 - Damren v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 18 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “the victim's uniqueness as an individual human being and the resultant loss to the community's members by the victim's death.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Sexton v. State · 896 So. 2d 725 - Orme v. State

2. “Damren claims that the court erred in allowing Wendy Hedley, Tessa Mosley, and Joanne Waldrup to testify in the penalty phase as to what Chittam said about the murder when he returned to Hedley's trailer immediately following the killing. We disagree. The State argued the following in its proffer of Chittam's statements to the trial court: 1) Hearsay is admissible in the penalty phase; 2) Damren was accorded a fair opportunity to rebut Chittam's statements because Hedley, Mosley, and Waldrup were available for cross-examination; 3) Chittam's statements were corroborated by other witnesses who also were available for cross-examination; and 4) Chittam himself was unavailable for cross-examination only because Damren, in order to silence him, had beaten him to death with a hatchet shortly after he made the statements. The State also argued that the statements were admissible in any event as excited utterances. Our review of the record shows no abuse of discretion in admitting Chittam's statements. See Blanco v. State, 452 So.2d 520, 523 (Fla.1984). We addressed a similar deceased-declarant scenario in Spencer v. State, 645 So.2d 377 (Fla.1994), wherein the out-of-court statements of the murder victim (describing a prior attack and threat by the defendant) were admitted in the penalty phase via the in-court testimony of a police officer. We found it sufficient under section 921.141(1), Florida Statutes (Supp.1992), that "Spencer was ... given an opportunity to cross-examine the o”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 838 So. 2d 512 - Damren v. State

3. “and came at him with the pipe. Knight ran from the building, yelling. Damren fled. Miller died later that night. Knight immediately identified Damren to police (Damren had lived in Knight's neighborhood since childhood) and Damren was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, armed burglary, and aggravated assault. At trial, the medical examiner testified that the victim, Miller, had been struck a minimum of seven times on the head and four on the body. Four of the head wounds would have caused unconsciousness and death, including one”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 838 So. 2d 512 - Damren v. State