Lawton v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 122 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 131 later decisions — most recently March 2019 · most notably King v. State (1997), Mosley v. State (1998)
3 federal appellate · 122 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 Jackson v. Virginia · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Eddings v. Oklahoma
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 131 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Whether, taking into consideration all of the evidence, including the circumstances of the offense, the defendant’s character and background, and the personal moral culpability of the defendant, there is a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life imprisonment rather than a death sentence be imposed.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Morris v. State · Bell v. State“commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Janecka v. State · Coble v. State“intentionally cause[d] the death of an individual, David Chapa by shooting David Chapa with a deadly weapon, to-wit: a firearm, in the course of committing or attempting to commit the offense of robbery, you will find the defendant guilty of the offense of Capital Murder and so say by your verdict, or if you believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, that ... Kevin Barnes or Kevin Richardson intentionally caused the death of an individual, David Chapa by shooting David Chapa with a deadly weapon, to-wit: a firearm, in the course of committing or attempting to commit the offense of robbery and the defendant, Carlis Jovonite Russell acting with the intent that the capital murder of David Chapa be committed did solicit, encourage, direct, aid or attempt to aid Kevin Barnes or Kevin Richardson to commit the offense, by carrying a weapon during the robbery, if any, by taking property from customers, if he did, by threatening customers, by removing property from the business establishment, or by firing his weapon during the robbery, if he did, then you will find the defendant, Carlis Jovonite Russell guilty of the offense of Capital Murder.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Russell v. State
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.