Holmes v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 2 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “There are the differences in Petitioner’s and Saylor’s situations that the Court’s order identifies, to be sure. But one of the themes of the Saylor opinion that comes through loud and clear is the relative uniqueness of Saylor’s position — that part of the reason that it would have been improper to execute him was that he was one of only three people on death row whose jury had recommended against death. Petitioner’s situation is almost as unique. Indeed, the Saylor opinion identified Petitioner by name as being only one of four people on death row (the others being the three just mentioned) whose juries had not recommended a sentence of death. Put differently, assuming the other two individuals in the same class as Saylor receive the same relief, Petitioner will be the only person on Indiana’s death row whose jury has not recommended a sentence of death. As to the 2002 amendments to the Indiana death penalty statute, it is true that the statute still authorizes the sentencing judge to impose a death sentence if the jury cannot agree on a sentencing recommendation. But I do not think this package is wrapped tightly enough to say that there is no reasonable possibility that Petitioner is entitled to post-conviction relief. This is because, even though the statute still permits a judge to impose a death sentence in the face of a penalty phase “hung-jury,” the statute operates differently than it did prior to the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Lambert v. Davis