John William Rook v. Nathan A. Rice, Warden, Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently December 2008
10 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Wainwright v. Sykes · Gregg v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Sandstrom v. Montana · Mullaney v. Wilbur
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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The procedure involved in imposing the death penalty need not be structured to favor a defendant but need only avoid creating a fundamentally unfair trial. See Barclay v. Florida, 463 U.S. 939 , 103 S. Ct. 3418 , 77 L. Ed. 2d 1134 (1983). The best of all procedural worlds is not guaranteed by the United States Constitution. McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183 , 91 S. Ct. 1454 , 28 L. Ed. 2d 711 (1971). In Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862 , 103 S. Ct. 2733 , 77 L. Ed. 2d 235 (1983), the Supreme Court emphasized that in designing a constitutional capita] punishment system, all that the state is required to provide is a meaningful basis for distinguishing between those trials resulting in a penalty of death and those in which a penalty of life imprisonment is imposed. Under Thant, this is accomplished by simply identifying aggravating circumstances and requiring that one or more of them be found.” Rook v. Rice, 783 F.2d 401, 406 (4th Cir. 1986).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If the state proves beyond a reasonable doubt or it is admitted that the defendant intentionally killed [the victim] with a deadly weapon, ... the law implies first that the killing was unlawful, and second, that it was done with malice, (emphasis added).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the only thing that could help him was to tell the truth”
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.