Cooper v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 24 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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “COURT: So I’m asking whether you could give meaningful consideration to each of those possible punishments and — including death by lethal injection — and agree to a verdict of death if that in your opinion was justified. KNIGHT: No, sir, not death. COURT: Could you — if you found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of Murder in the First Degree, and if the law would permit you to consider a death — a sentence of death, do you have such reservations about the death penalty that, regardless of the law, regardless of the facts and circumstances, you could not consider a verdict fixing death? KNIGHT: No sir. COURT: State may inquire if you wish. MR. MACY: State would move he be excused, Your Honor. COURT: Defendant may inquire if you wish. MR. GASSAWAY: I have no questions. COURT: I must reluctantly excuse you, Mr. Knight. Please return to the jury assembly room for further assignment.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Cargle v. State

2. “For that would seem to deny to the legislature the power to alter, change or amend the law. Yet we know that it is every day's practice for the law-making department of the government to repeal old laws, enact new, and change remedies. The principle does not demand that the laws existing at any point of time shall be irrepealable, or that any forms of remedies shall necessarily continue. It refers to certain fundamental rights which that system of justice, of which ours is a derivative, has always recognized. If any of these are disregarded, in the proceedings by which a person is condemned to the loss of life, liberty or property, then the deprivation has not been by "due course of law."”

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

3. “The function of a standard of proof, as that concept is embodied in the Due Process Clause and in the realm of factfinding, is `to instruct the factfinder concerning the degree of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual conclusions for a particular type of adjudication.' In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 , 370 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Cooper v. Oklahoma