Bell v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 91 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 101 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2019 · most notably King v. State (1997), Wesbrook v. State (2000)
2 federal appellate · 91 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 Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Brown v. Illinois · Penry v. Lynaugh · Zant v. Stephens
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 101 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(a) No evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case. In any case where the legal evidence raises an issue hereunder, the jury shall be instructed that if it believes, or has a reasonable doubt, that the evidence was obtained in violation of the provisions of this Article, then and in such event, the jury shall disregard any such evidence so obtained.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society; and (2) 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 or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life imprisonment rather than a death sentence be imposed.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Maldonado v. State · Reese v. State“The [Supreme] Court ... has upheld the constitutionality of aggravating factors ranging from whether the defendant was a ‘cold-blooded, pitiless slayer,’ to whether the ‘perpetrator inflict[ed] mental anguish or physical abuse before the victim’s death,’ to whether the defendant ‘would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Coble v. State · Goodwin v. Johnson
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.