Wicks v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 595 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 603 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably Williams v. State (2007), Anderson v. State (2003)
2 federal appellate · 595 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 Rogers v. State · Kansas City Southern Railway Co. v. Murphy · State v. Meiers · Harding v. State · Spears v. State
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 603 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) when the trial court fails to bring the jury’s attention to a matter essential to its consideration of the death penalty itself; (2) when the defense counsel has no knowledge of the error and hence no opportunity to object; (3) when the error is so flagrant and so highly prejudicial in character as to make it the duty of the court on its own motion to have instructed the jury correctly; and (4) Ark. R. Evid. 103(d) provides that the appellate court is not precluded from taking notice of errors affecting substantial rights, although they were not brought to the attention to the trial court.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Vaughn v. State · Fields v. State“... In Arkansas, however, we do not have such a rule. Smith v. State, 268 Ark. 282 , 595 S.W.2d 671 (1980). To the contrary, in hundreds of cases we have reiterated our fundamental rule that an argument for reversal will not be considered in the absence of an appropriate objection in the trial court. Citations to that familiar principle are unnecessary.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Ballew v. State · Sutton v. State“Nothing in this rule precludes taking notice of errors affecting substantial rights although they were not brought to the attention of the court.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Withers v. State · Aaron v. State
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.