10 Cal. 4th 1 - People v. Cain’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 289 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 295 later decisions — most recently July 2022 · most notably People v. Osband (1996), 16 Cal. 4th 153 - People v. Williams (1997)
3 federal appellate · 289 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Chapman v. State of California · Boykin v. Alabama · Estelle v. McGuire · Wainwright v. Witt
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 295 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Defendant also appears to argue his counsel’s concessions were an incompetent tactical choice. We disagree. Defendant admitted to the police on tape he was inside the victims’ residence when they were murdered and he entered the residence with the intent to steal money. His taped statement was played to the jury. Defendant’s admission that he entered the residence for the purpose of stealing money-proved his specific intent to commit burglary. Under the felony-murder rule, his commission of burglary, together with the killing of the victims in the commission of the burglary, made him liable for murder. Under these circumstances, we cannot conclude counsel was ineffective for candidly admitting defendant’s guilt on these counts while vigorously arguing against defendant’s guilt of the special circumstances.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“notoriously difficult ... to define and apply.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Defendant further contends trial counsel did not present even a minimally effective argument on the undisputed use of alcohol and drugs on the night in question. Counsel did briefly argue there was no intent to kill because defendant was obviously under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Belaboring this point would have risked appearing to concede defendant was the killer, which would have conflicted with and detracted from counsel’s primary argument, that (consistent with his police statement) defendant had not killed anyone, planned to kill anyone or assisted in killing anyone in the burglary. In addition, almost no evidence was presented regarding the quantity and effects of the drugs consumed by defendant on the night of the murders or the effect consumption had on defendant. Defendant thus cannot demonstrate either deficient performance or prejudice in his counsel’s argument relating to this subject.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Cain v. Chappell
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.