95 F. Supp. 2d 744 - Mason v. Mitchell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 3 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The photographs were introduced during the testimony of the police officers who discovered the body and arrested [the petitioner] at the apartment. In addition to identifying the deceased, the photographs served to illustrate and make more understandable the officers’ testimony which described the apartment and its condition, and the location and condition of the deceased’s body and the nature and extent of the injuries to the deceased. These are certainly legitimate purposes. [The petitioner] does not contend that any of the photographs were unrepresentative or misleading respecting either the condition of the victim or the crime scene. Moreover, he in essence does not dispute that introduction of three or “even” four such photographs would have been permissible, but contends that eight was, in effect, overkill. However, as the district court observed, each of the photographs, with the sole exception of numbers 3 and 4, shows injuries and details that the others do not. It is entirely clear that photographic evidence of the kind introduced was entirely proper, and that to the extent more was used than appropriate this did not go so far as to render Woods’ trial fundamentally unfair.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. 188 F. Supp. 2d 798 - Frazier v. Mitchell

2. “During Hayden’s conversations with the Youngs, both Michael and Carolyn Young indicated that they had moved from Ohio to South Carolina because they were receiving threatening letters and telephone calls from unknown people in connection with the trial. Michael Young told Captain Hayden that when Chris Dennis woke up late in the evening on February 8, 1993, he was angry that Robin Dennis was not there, and said he would kill her when he found her. Carolyn Young said she thought she had seen, several hours after Dennis was last seen alive, the Harley-Davidson T-shirt Dennis was wearing at the time of the murder. Carolyn Young said she thought she had seen Robin Dennis riding in a car on the evening of February 8, 1993, several hours after the prosecution argued that [Mason] killed Dennis. Both Youngs expressed concerns that Chris Dennis might have killed his wife in order to gain the proceeds of her life insurance.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mason v. Mitchell

3. “[Mason] has not suggested the existence of any mitigating factor that is not overwhelmingly negated by his history of violent criminal conduct, including a prior rape and firearms offenses, multiple parole violations, and multiple drug offenses stretching as far back as elementary school. [Mason]’s counsel’s strategy of not presenting mitigating testimony in order to keep [Masonjs extensive criminal history from the jury was objectively reasonable. Nor has [Mason] shown prejudice; on this record, Mason cannot show a reasonable likelihood that any juror who was apprised of [Mason]’s complete psychosocial history — including his prior criminal record — would not have voted for the death penalty.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Mason v. Mitchell