State v. Hodges’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 37 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 41 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In Odom, supra, the defendant claimed that the trial court erred by refusing to submit to the jury his requested fact specific instructions on nonstatutory mitigating circumstances. We rejected that claim, concluding that the fact specific instructions advocated by the defense implied to the jury that the judge had made findings of fact in contravention of Article VI, § 9 of the Tennessee Constitution. Id., 928 S.W.2d at 32. We held that specificity in the charge on nonstatutory mitigating circumstances is inappropriate and cautioned that instructions must be drafted “so that when they are considered by the jury, the statutory mitigating circumstances are indistinguishable from the non-statutory mitigating circumstances.” Id. Though not explicitly stated in Odom, the clear implication is that instructions on non-statutory mitigating circumstances must be phrased in general categories similar to the statutory mitigating circumstances. Finally, we emphasized in Odom, that under the statute, a trial court has no duty, absent a timely and proper request from the defense, to include instructions on nonstatutory mitigating circumstances. Id., 928 S.W.2d at 31. However, when the defense proffers a requested instruction which is overly specific, it is incumbent upon the trial court to revise and generalize the instruction to conform to the evidence and the law. Id. Applying those principles to the facts in this case, it is clear that the trial court appropriately denied the defendant”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brimmer v. State · State v. Reid

2. “In mitigation, the defendant testified and also presented the testimony of his mother, his brothers and Dr. Barry Nurcombe, a child psychiatrist. This proof showed that the defendant was the next to youngest of his mother’s five sons. His mother and father were not married. His father was actually married to another woman, but engaged in what one of the witnesses described as an “irregular union” with the defendant’s mother for eighteen years. The defendant’s father abused the defendant’s mother and was strict with the defendant’s brothers, three of whom were the children of another man. The defendant, however, was his father’s favorite and was spoiled. Financial difficulties forced the family to move about frequently, and defendant’s father supported the family only sporadically. The defense introduced proof to show that Hodges seemed normal until he was twelve years old. At that time, he began to associate with older boys, sniff glue and gasoline, be truant from school, and run away from home. He also engaged in sexual activities with his younger brother and attempted sexual activities with a female cousin. He became involved with the juvenile authorities and was confined to a juvenile facility in Chattanooga. Through his mitigation proof, the defendant attempted to establish that a catalyst and major contributing cause of his delinquent and later criminal behavior was his rape and sexual abuse by a stranger when he was twelve years old. According to the defendant, he accep”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hodges v. Colson · Hodges v. Colson

3. “[J]urors do not sit in solitary isolation booths parsing instructions for subtle shades of meaning in the same way that lawyers might. Differences among them in interpretation of instructions may be thrashed out in the deliberative process, with commonsense understanding of the instructions in the light of all that has taken place at the trial likely to prevail over technical hairsplitting.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Rimmer · State v. Vann