Collins v. Al Lockhart’s Empirical Analysis
754 F.2d 258 · 1985
Citation profile
54 federal appellate · 33 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 130 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2022 · most notably Williams v. Taylor (2000), Lockhart v. Fretwell (1993)
54 federal appellate · 33 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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 · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Zant v. Stephens · County Court of Ulster Cty. v. Allen
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 130 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and * * * reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]e see no escape from the conclusion that an aggravating circumstance which merely repeats an element of the underlying crime cannot perform this narrowing function.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The question, rather, is whether use of an aggravating circumstance that duplicates an element of crime itself is a violation of the Eighth Amendment, as applied to the states by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two recent Supreme court opinions, Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420 , 100 S.Ct. 1759 , 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980) (plurality opinion), and Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862 , 103 S.Ct. 2733 , 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983), clearly indicate that such a violation has occurred here. Aggravating circumstances, in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment, must “genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and ... reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder.” Id. [ 462 U.S. at 875-878 ,] 103 S.Ct. at 2742-43 (footnote omitted). An aggravating circumstance is an objective criterion that can be used to distinguish a particular defendant on whom the jury has decided to impose the death sentence from other defendants who have committed the same underlying capital crime. Aggravating circumstances serve to reduce the danger that the death penalty will be wantonly or arbitrarily imposed, a danger that was uppermost in the Court’s mind when Furman v. Georgia ... was decided.... We see no escape from the conclusion that an aggravating circumstance which merely repeats an element of the underlying crime cannot perform this narrowing function.”
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.