Ferrazza v. Mintzes’s Empirical Analysis
735 F.2d 967 · 1984
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 36 later decisions — most recently June 2008 · most notably Turner v. Marshall (1995), Bagby v. Sowders (1990)
23 federal appellate · 2 district · 1 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 Linkletter v. Walker · Beck v. Alabama · Hopper v. Evans · Samuel Keener v. L. G. Ridenour, Warden · Pilon v. E Bordenkircher
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 36 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Beck held that due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given when the evidence warrants such an instruction. But due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given only when the evidence warrants such an instruction. The jury’s discretion is thus channelled so that it may convict a defendant of any crime fairly supported by the evidence. Under Alabama law, the rule in noncapital cases is that a lesser included offense instruction should be given if ‘there is any reasonable theory from the evidence which would support the position.’ The federal rule is that a lesser included offense instruction should be given ‘if the evidence would permit a jury rationally to find [a defendant] guilty of the lesser offense and acquit him of the greater.’ The Alabama rule clearly does not offend federal constitutional standards, and no reason has been advanced why it should not apply in capital cases.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.