Boyd v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
87 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 92 later decisions — most recently February 2017 · most notably Cantu v. State (1992), Moody v. State (1992)
87 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 · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Eddings v. Oklahoma
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 92 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Some discretion is inherent and desirable in any system of justice, from arrest to final judgment. * * * * To eliminate all discretion on the part of the jury would be to risk elimination of that valuable element which permits individualization based on consideration of all extenuating circumstances and would eliminate the element of mercy, one of the fundamental traditions of our system of criminal jurisprudence.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Ex Parte Bower · State v. McPherson“In this case, in the absence of instructions informing the jury that it could consider and give effect to the mitigating evidence ... by declining to impose the death penalty, we conclude that the jury was not provided with a vehicle for expressing its `reasoned moral response' to that evidence in rendering its sentencing decision. Our reasoning in Lockett [ v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 , 98 S.Ct. 2954 , 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978)] and Eddings [ v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 , 102 S.Ct. 869 , 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982)] thus compels a remand for resentencing so that we do not `risk that the death penalty will be imposed in spite of factors which may call for a less severe penalty.' [citations omitted]. `When the choice is between life and death, that risk is unacceptable and incompatible with the commands of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.' [citations omitted.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. State v. McPherson“... Indeed, it is precisely because the punishment should be directly related to the personal culpability of the defendant that the jury must be allowed to consider and give effect to mitigating evidence relevant to a defendant's character or record or the circumstances of the offense. Rather than creating the risk of an unguided emotional response, full consideration of evidence that mitigates against the death penalty is essential if the jury is to give a `”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Ex Parte Bower
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.