State v. Bobo’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

32 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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"We are of the opinion that while the language of T.C.A. § 39-2-203(i)(12) could be read to permit the State to present evidence of murders other than the defendant's record of convictions to show this aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt, such a construction would violate a number of State Constitutional guarantees, including the rights to a trial by an impartial jury, to an indictment or presentation, to confront witnesses against him, and against self-incrimination, all guaranteed by Article I, § 9, of the Tennessee Constitution. Essentially, therefore, such a construction would result in a procedure so unfair and prejudicial as to violate the due process of law guaranteed by Article I, § 8, `[t]hat no man shall be taken or imprisoned, or deseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life, liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land.'" ..... "In this case, in accordance with the established rule of statutory construction, we have concluded that T.C.A. § 39-2-203(i)(12) may be constitutionally applied if the triggering offenses are shown only by convictions that have been entered prior to the sentencing hearing at which they are to be utilized to establish this aggravating circumstance. `We will not declare a statute unconstitutional when we are reasonably able to do otherwise — to preserve its meaning and purpose through a constitutionally correct const”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Black

2. ““Defendant says that the trial court excluded jurors from service on the jury who were opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds, amounting to a religious test for jury service in violation of Article I, § 6, Tennessee Constitution.... We have read the voir dire carefully and, while some jurors said their opposition to and inability to impose the death penalty, regardless of the evidence adduced, was based in whole or in part on religious grounds, those jurors were excused because their views on capital punishment rendered them unable to follow the law as given to them by the court and to perform their duties as jurors in accord with their oaths. That their views on capital punishment may have had a religious foundation does not necessarily transform the test mandated by the United States Supreme Court in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 , 88 S.Ct. 1770 , 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), and Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412 , 105 S.Ct. 844 , 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985), into religious tests for ... [constitutional purposes].””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Jones

3. “to permit the State to present evidence sufficient to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had committed murders, for which he has not yet been convicted and before the very jury that has just returned a guilty verdict for first degree murder, violates the concept of fundamental fairness embodied in due process of law, subjecting a defendant to what is in effect a trial without the panoply of substantive and procedural protections afforded by the Tennessee Constitution. Such a procedure would thus be invalid under the law of the land provision of this State’s Constitution, Article I, § 8, which ‘is synonymous with the “due process” clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Daugherty v. State, 216 Tenn. 666 , 393 S.W.2d 739 (1966).’ Dearborne v. State, 575 S.W.2d 259, 262 (Tenn.1978). See also Frazier v. State, 480 S.W.2d 551, 552 (Tenn.Cr.App.), cert. denied (Tenn.1972).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Hale