VanWoundenberg v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently May 2018
2 federal appellate · 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
Relies on Furman v. Georgia · Zant v. Stephens · Godfrey v. Georgia · Maynard v. Cartwright · Satterwhite v. Texas
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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This approach of reweighing the aggravating circumstances against the mitigating evidence to determine the validity of the death sentence focuses on the individual circumstances of the homicide and the characteristics of each defendant. It ensures that the death penalty will not be “wantonly” or “freakishly” imposed. Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. at 310, 92 S.Ct. at 2762.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“[O]ur appellate review, including a reweighing of the remaining valid aggravating circumstances and the mitigating evidence, reveals that sufficient evidence existed to support the remaining aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt and the imposition of the death penalty as a result.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the authority to review any remaining aggravating circumstances and the mitigating evidence to determine the validity of the death sentence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.