Williams v. Lynaugh’s Empirical Analysis
814 F.2d 205 · 1987
Citation profile
33 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 84 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2023 · most notably Williams v. Lynaugh, Director, Texas Department of Corrections (1987), United States v. Mergerson (1993)
33 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 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 Gregg v. Georgia · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Zant v. Stephens · Jurek v. Texas · Cherek v. United States
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 84 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'properly applied standards of relevance and sufficiency of proof' are necessary to ensure that constitutional safeguards are observed when allegations of unadjudicated offenses are presented by the State at sentencing.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]e hold that the admission of unadjudicated offenses in the sentencing phase of a capital trial does not violate the eighth and fourteenth amendments.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The purpose of allowing evidence of nonad-judicated offenses to be considered in the sentencing phase is to assist the jury in determining whether the defendant is likely to be a continuing threat to society. This evidence helps focus the jury on the particular circumstances of the individual offense and the individual offender.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. State v. Cohen
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.