Von Dohlen v. State

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding the State must tailor its closing arguments so as not to appeal to the personal biases of the jury or arouse the jurors' passions or prejudices
• holding trial counsel, during the penalty phase of a capital case, was deficient in failing to object to solicitor’s comment for the jurors to put themselves in the victim’s shoes, but finding such deficient performance was not prejudicial
• finding solicitor’s comments asking jurors to put themselves in victim’s shoes was an improper Golden Rule argument
• finding solicitor's comments asking jurors to put themselves in victim's shoes was an improper Golden Rule argument
• “It is difficult to determine the precise impact of the solicitor’s argument on the jury’s deliberation of the sentence, but the potential impact must be carefully and thoroughly evaluated in a capital case.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).