Hans v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 81 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 93 later decisions — most recently December 2025 · most notably Whitlow v. State (2008), State v. White (2001)
4 federal appellate · 81 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 · Anders v. California · Penson v. Ohio · Hill v. Lockhart · Ake v. Oklahoma
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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a. Defense counsel induced Thee to plead guilty and threatened Thee by telling him he was “going to die” unless he pleaded guilty. b. Defense counsel failed to address the alleged violent treatment Thee received from inmates and jail guards during Thee’s incarceration in the Cascade County Jail. c. Defense counsel failed to seek suppression of statements Thee made during police interrogation, which Thee alleged violated his Miranda rights. d. Defense counsel failed to have Thee’s mental or emotional stress at the time of the homicide evaluated by a qualified mental health examiner to prove circumstances that could be used to mitigate the deliberate homicide charge. e. Defense counsel failed to inform Thee of a possibility of seeking conviction at trial of a lesser included offense.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Thee“Hans’ counsel... did not have the benefit of Smith when acquiescing in the dissemination of the mental health report. As the United States Supreme Court warns of the danger in applying hindsight to assess attorney performance in Strickland... it follows that subsequently decided case law cannot be used to judge an attorney’s conduct at the time of representation. Furthermore, we have held that counsel is not ineffective for following a statute in effect at the time, (citation omitted) Therefore, we hold that defense counsel’s acquiescence in dissemination of the mental health reports pursuant to § 46-14-202, MCA, is not grounds for a finding of ineffective assistance of counsel.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Turner“Hans has brought to this Court’s attention the dilemma posed by Finney and Tecca. Although Finney appears to provide a remedy for abandonment on appeal by way of post-conviction relief, Tecca limits post-conviction claims to those that could not have been raised on appeal. Hans argues that the constraints of Tecca foreclose his ability to raise the appealable issues arising out of sentencing in this post-conviction proceeding. That is, since they could have been raised on appeal, they cannot be raised in a post-conviction proceeding. For this reason, Hans claims that an out-of-time appeal is the appropriate remedy.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Petition of Hans
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.