No. 98-6577’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 1 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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Harris addressed this problem by developing a presumption that “a procedural default does not bar consideration of a federal claim on either direct or habeas review unless the last state court rendering a judgment in the case clearly and expressly states that its judgment rests on a state procedural bar.” The presumption developed in Harris , however, does not apply unless “it fairly appears that a state court judgment rested primarily on federal law or was interwoven with federal law, that is, in those cases where a federal court has good reason to question whether there is an independent and adequate state ground for the decision.” Therefore, only when the decision of the state court fairly appears to be grounded in federal law must “federal habeas courts ... conclusively presume that a state decision does not rest on an independent and adequate state ground, unless the state court’s opinion contains a plain statement that [its] decision rests upon adequate and independent state grounds.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 82 F. Supp. 2d 474 - Riley v. South Carolina

2. “The rub comes in attempting to decipher the basis for an unexplained state order, i.e., in deciding whether a state court’s summary disposition — like the one-sentence denial at issue here — “fairly appears” to rest on federal law or on an adequate and independent state ground. Fortunately, there are some general guideposts to direct our inquiry. First, federal habeas courts should simply look to the text of the state court’s order for clues, in particular whether the state order mentions federal law. Also, the language used by the state court in disposing of the claim may suggest a basis for the order. Second, fed eral habeas courts should consider the circumstances surrounding the entry of the state order. For example, the federal habeas court’s decision might be informed by examining whether the claims presented to the state court were subject to summary denial on procedural grounds under state law, or whether the state court refused to conduct an eviden-tiary hearing.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 82 F. Supp. 2d 474 - Riley v. South Carolina