Davis v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 57 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 63 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]hen faced with the ambiguous voir dire record of a venireperson who indicates both an inability to follow the law because of her views on the death penalty, and an ability to follow her oath and the law as instructed by the court, great deference should be given to the decision of the trial judge. A trial court’s ruling on these issues should be reversed “only when the record shows a clear abuse of discretion.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Cantu v. State · Hai Hai Vuong v. State

2. “In a capital felony case, the court shall propound to the entire panel of prospective jurors questions concerning the principles, as applicable to the case on trial, of reasonable doubt, burden of proof, return of indictment by grand jury, presumption of innocence, and opinion. Then, on demand of the State or defendant, either is entitled to examine each juror on voir dire individually and apart from the entire panel, and may further question the juror on the principles propounded by the court.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Turner v. State · Garza v. State

3. “The jury in a capital murder case is responsible for answering questions the result of which will determine the life or death of an individual. Any information that is given the jury which may be interpreted by it as relieving that responsibility is considered an infraction upon the jury’s fact finding function. See, e.g., Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 , 105 S.Ct. 2633 , 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985) (jurors improperly told that their decision was “reviewable”). In rejecting the same challenge made by appellant in this case, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina observed: “Petitioner contends that a juror who conscientiously believes that the evidence called for a life sentence might nevertheless vote for the death penalty in order to avoid mistakenly assumed consequences of jury deadlock. Although this scenario is plausible, so is the converse possibility that a juror convinced of the appropriateness of a life sentence would refuse to consider the evidence and the views of other jurors in support of the death penalty, knowing that his blind obsti-nance would perforce result in a life sentence. Neither scenario results in a ‘reliable’ or desirable process of deliberation, but the court cannot say that the first scenario is significantly likely to occur as a result of not giving the instruction than is the second as a result of giving it.” Barfield v. Harris, 540 F.Supp. 451 , 472 n. 17 (E.D.N.C.1982) affirmed, 719 F.2d 58 (4th Cir.1983) c”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Nobles v. State