United States v. Wight’s Empirical Analysis
176 F.2d 376 · 1949
Citation profile
189 federal appellate · 15 district · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 304 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2019 · most notably Commonwealth v. Saferian (1974), United States v. Bentvena (1963)
189 federal appellate · 15 district · 29 state decisions — followed in 16 states
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 18 U.S.C. § 702 · 18 U.S.C. § 912 · 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Glasser v. United States · Johnson v. Zerbst · Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Von Moltke v. Gillies · Avery v. State of Alabama
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 304 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A lack of effective assistance of counsel must be of such a kind as to shock the conscience of the Court and make the proceedings a farce and mockery of justice.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(t)he proof of the efficiency of . . . assistance (of counsel) lies in the character of the resultant proceedings. . . .”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the Assistance of Counsel for his defence”
2 later decisions 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.