Burger v. Kemp’s Empirical Analysis
753 F.2d 930 · 1985
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2007 · most notably Burger v. Kemp (1987), Porter v. Wainwright (1986)
17 federal appellate · 9 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 Strickland v. Washington · Glasser v. United States · Gregg v. Georgia · Cuyler v. Sullivan · Lockett v. Ohio
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Burger v. Kemp · Foster v. Dugger“I felt the way to try that case was to take the evidence that was there and try to minimize Mr. Burger's participation in the crime. . . . I felt that case should have been tried on the facts and make the District Attorney—I say make him, use whatever rules of evidence to exclude those harmful facts, and then use the my opinion in representing Burger was then use those facts to show that he was just there and was not entitled to be treated in the same manner as the person who was—who was the main actor in the thing. That he was a secondary, he was in a secondary position. Since there were two punishments in that particular situation, that he should be given the lesser of the two. I think that's the way that case should have been tried, and that's the way I tried it. And, I don't know of—today, if I had to go back and try it again I would do it in the same manner—I say in the same manner, much the same manner, using the same thing and hope I got a different jury. That's all. And, that's it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Burger v. Kemp“"`On one hand, a jury could react with sympathy over the tragic childhood [the defendant] endured. On the other hand, since [the defendant's] sanity was not in issue in this case, the prosecution could use this same testimony, after pointing out that petitioner was nevertheless responsible for his acts, to emphasize that it was this same unpredictable propensity for violence which played a prominent role in the death of [the defendant's] victim. "[M]itigation . . ., after all, [m]ay be in the eye of the beholder." Stanley v. Zant , 697 F.2d 955 , 969 n. 11 (11th Cir. 1983) (footnote omitted).'"”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.