Sellers v. Ward’s Empirical Analysis
135 F.3d 1333 · 1998
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 90 later decisions — most recently May 2024 · most notably Russel William Burket v. Ronald Angelone, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections (2000), United States v. McVeigh (1998)
18 federal appellate · 4 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Murray v. Carrier · Lockett v. Ohio · Wainwright v. Witt · Lindh v. Murphy
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 90 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“many hurdles had to be jumped before a capital murder trial could ever occur”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Claims of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence have never been held to state a ground for federal habeas relief absent an independent constitutional violation occurring in the underlying state criminal proceeding.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. LaFevers v. Gibson“[BJecause the constitutional error he raises focuses only on the State’s post-conviction remedy and not the judgment which provides the basis for his incarceration, it states no cognizable federal habeas claim.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.