Grubbs v. Delo’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate ·

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

1. “The only direct evidence with respect to the missing money and food stamps was petitioner’s testimony that his brother Randy, who was also involved in the killing, took them before leaving the trailer. The evidence suggests that the gloves were worn so as not to leave incriminating fingerprints on the knives with which the victim was cut; the record provides no basis whatsoever for any connection between the gloves petitioner and his brother wore at the scene and any preexisting purpose of pecuniary gain. This negligible evidence is insufficient to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that petitioner killed the victim for monetary gain. Even less support exists in the record for a reasonable finding that the murder was designed to prevent petitioner’s arrest. The Court suspects that the evidence that petitioner and his brother later returned to the scene and set the trailer on fire in an attempt to conceal the murder was somehow construed by the jury as evidence of this aggravating circumstance, but such an inference is backwards: the fire was set for the purpose of preventing arrest for the murder, perhaps, but the murder itself had no apparent purpose of evading arrest. The Court believes, then, that both of the challenged aggravating circumstances were erroneously submitted to the jury.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Grubbs v. Delo

2. “Ground L is petitioner’s claim that the trial court improperly submitted to the jury two aggravating circumstances not supported by the evidence: (1) that petitioner committed the murder “for the purpose of receiving money or any other thing of monetary value,” and (2) that the murder was committed “for the purpose of preventing a lawful arrest” of petitioner.... The Missouri Supreme Court rejected this contention on direct appeal, holding that a reasonable jury could have found, based on the evidence, that these circumstances existed. Grubbs, 724 S.W.2d at 500 . In his concurrence, [Justice] Blackmar disagreed with that holding. Id. at 502 . Based on a careful review of the trial record, this Court makes it own determination of this question of law, and in so doing so is in agreement with [Justice] Blackmar....”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Grubbs v. Delo

3. “‘the tools with which to make a Mills argument’ have been available since Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 , 98 S.Ct. 2954 , 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Grubbs v. Delo