Black v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 74 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 97 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result was reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction or death sentence resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Ex Parte Davis

2. “1. the circumstances of the capital offense, including the defendant’s state of mind and whether he or she was working alone or with other parties; 2. the calculated nature of the defendant’s acts; 3. the forethought and deliberateness exhibited by the crime’s execution; 4. the existence of a prior criminal record, and the severity of the prior crimes; 5. the defendant’s age and personal circumstances at the time of the offense; 6. whether the defendant was acting under duress or the domination of another at the time of the commission of the offense; 7. psychiatric evidence; and, 8. character evidence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Joiner v. State

3. “Given the settled state of the case law at the time of appellant’s trial, we refuse to fault him or his attorney for failing to object to the jury charge at punishment or request an instruction informing the jury it may give effect to the mitigating evidence presented at trial. Under the established precedent, the trial judge would have been correct in overruling the objection or denying the additional instruction, and clearly the defendant would not have been granted relief from this Court on direct appeal.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Ex Parte Hathorn