Ex Parte Tennard’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 9 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “But whether he has a low IQ or not is not really the issue. Because the legislature, in asking you to address that question [the future dangerousness special issue], the reasons why he became a danger are not really relevant. The fact that he is a danger, that the evidence shows he's a danger, is the criteria to use in answering that question.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Tennard v. Dretke, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division · Tennard v. Dretke

2. “Then I called a witness who testified he’s Tennard’s parole officer. Uncon-troverted evidence that when Robert Tennard was examined, when he got out of the penitentiary, by the officials who determined how to classify him, how to treat him, the same information that was communicated to his parole officer, what to do for him, how to help him when he’s out on parole. Information that the prison psychiatrist had, the information that they gave is that Tennard has got a 67 IQ. The same guy that told this poor unfortunate woman [the rape victim] that was trying to work that day, “Well, if I let you in there, will you leave?” And he believed her. This guy with the 67 IQ, and she goes in and, sure enough, she escapes, just like she should have. That is uncontroverted testimony before you, that we have got a man before us that has got an intelligence quotient ... that is that low. Now you’re charged with acting as Robert Tennard’s peers. You have to judge him as his peers. That’s going to be hard for you to do. None of you grew up where he grew up. Only one of you is black and none of you are suffering from a 67 IQ. So you’re going to have to try to judge this man and decide what his punishment would be as his peers. And I would ask you as you do that, as is your responsibility, you take into consideration the things that you have been informed of by me and by things the prosecutor has told you in judging Robert Tennard.... And don’t let [the prosecutor] get up here and tell you to p”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Tennard v. Cockrell

3. “In this case, in the absence of instructions informing the jury that it could consider and give effect to the mitigating evidence of Penry’s mental retardation and abused background by declining to impose the death penalty, we conclude that the jury was not provided with a vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to that evidence in rendering its sentencing decision. Our reasoning in Lockett and Eddings thus compels a remand for resentencing so that we do not risk that the death penalty wfll be imposed in spite of factors which may call for a less severe penalty. When the choice is between life and death, that risk is unacceptable and incompatible with the commands of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Tennard v. Cockrell