83 Okla. Crim. 53 - Sapp v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1946
Citation profile
3 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on 82 Okla. Crim. 442 - Riner v. State · 75 Okla. Crim. 222 - Moore v. State · 73 Okla. Crim. 98 - Mills v. State · 81 Okla. Crim. 78 - Norman v. State · 18 Okla. Crim. 277 - Parks v. State
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 3 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The penalty of death as a punishment of crime is to be inflicted only in the most extreme cases. It is a matter of record that the members of this court favor the infliction of the death penalty in cases where the evidence and the law justify. Here there was an utter lack of motive. Both of the deceased were friends of defendant. He had had no harsh words with the deceased, although he had asked a brother of deceased to lend him money to go to Texas. * * * “No more solemn duty can be imposed upon the courts than the duty of protecting, and the duty of taking, human life. To take the life of a human being is an awful thing, even when it is taken by the law.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage“''It is our conclusion that the facts surrounding this crime do not justify the assessing of the extreme penalty of the law, and the judgment and sentence of death should be modified to provide that defendant, Jess Vaughn Sapp, be imprisoned in the State Penitentiary for life at hard labor. Surely this defendant, with a record of six convictions in felony cases, will never be allowed outside the prison walls again, but that in reality he should be forced to spend the remainder of his days confined to the penitentiary at hard labor, and, if this is done, such punishment will be ample for the crime which was committed.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage““The supreme penalty of death in the electric chair should not be imposed in this state except in the most aggravated cases * *”
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.