Chaney v. Brown’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

47 federal appellate · 6 district · 28 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 96 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We are convinced that the withheld evidence, considered as a whole in conjunction with the trial record, ‘might have affected’ the jury’s decision on the death penalty under the Agurs test. 1 ... Therefore, we conclude that there was constitutional error in refusing to disclose the reports after the specific pretrial request for such evidence. Since we have concluded that the previously imposed death sentence cannot constitutionally stand, a new sentence will be imposed and the terms of Chaney’s request will not require a federal eviden-tiary hearing. [Although petitioner’s first degree murder conviction is not invalid, the death penalty imposed following such error must be adjudged constitutionally infirm. Accordingly, the order of the District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma is affirmed with respect to denial of the writ; the order is reversed with respect to its denial of all further relief. The case is remanded to the District Court with directions to enter judgment that the writ of habeas corpus is denied but that, determining the case as law and justice require, the death sentence of petitioner heretofore imposed is adjudged invalid under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and the execution of the petitioner under this invalid death sentence is enjoined; ....”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Chaney v. Brown · Parks v. Brown

2. “[t]he withheld reports contained important mitigating evidence supporting the inference that another person or persons were involved in the kidnappings and murders, and that [the defendant] may not have personally killed the victims”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Brown v. Chaney · Howard v. Moore

3. “THE COURT: If it becomes necessary to consider punishment in this case, in a case where the law and the evidence warrant, in a proper case, could you without doing violence to your conscience agree to a verdict imposing the death penalty? MR. BOYD: That I’d have to give thought. THE COURT: I will ask you to give it thought right now. MR. BOYD: Well, I don’t think I could. THE COURT: You tell me if you were selected as a juror in this or any other case in which a defendant was charged with First Degree Murder and you and your fellow jurors found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of Murder in the First Degree, under the evidence, facts and circumstances of the case, the law were to permit you to consider a sentence of death, your reservations about the death penalty are such that regardless of the facts or regardless of the circumstances of the case you would not inflict the death penalty? MR. BOYD: Well, that would be taking a life; I don’t feel like I should do that. It would be like I was taking a life too. THE COURT: Your answer would be you would not inflict the death penalty? MR. BOYD: I guess I wouldn’t.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Banks v. State