Commonwealth v. Eldred’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 4 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]aken to its extreme, the implied acquittal theory results in any sentence being an implied acquittal of any higher sentence.... We reject any such outcome out of hand. Thus, had Eldred's jury returned a recommendation of 20 years' imprisonment, this recommendation would not have been an implied acquittal of a term of years greater than 20 or an implied acquittal of life. Nor would it have been an implied acquittal of Life-25, even though a sentence of Life-25, like the death penalty, requires a written finding of the existence of a least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. Commonwealth

2. “[e]ven if the jury finds the existence of an aggravating factor, the jury must still recommend a sentence within the entire range of possible sentences.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. Commonwealth

3. “the prosecution had carried its burden that death was an appropriate sentence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Brown v. Commonwealth