McMullen v. Maxwell’s Empirical Analysis
1965
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 24 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably State v. Perry (1967), State v. White (1968)
5 federal appellate · 24 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 Brady v. State of Maryland · Berger v. United States · Napue v. People of the State of Illinois · Mooney v. Holohan · Pyle v. State of Kansas
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A prosecutor would never be justified in knowingly using perjured testimony or fabricated evidence. In most instances, however, he would be justified in ignoring evidence which is favorable to the defense. A criminal prosecution is an adversarial proceeding in which the participants are normally concerned only with the presentation of one side. The prosecutor may and should prosecute to the best of his ability, relying on the defense to produce all evidence tending to acquit the accused. * * * “Whether the prosecutor had a duty to disclose evidence which is favorable to the accused and whether his failure to do so constitutes a denial of due process will depend upon the particular circumstances of each case. “ i-* * * it can pe sajq that the prosecutor must not act in an essentially unfair way. But this is an area in which the question of fundamental fairness depends so much upon the facts of the particular case that a precise rule cannot be devised. “ ‘It seems likely that many situations will arise in which a prosecutor can fairly keep to himself his knowledge of available testimony which he views as mistaken or false. But there are other circumstances in which a prosecutor must, or certainly should know that even testimony which he honestly disbelieves is of a type or from a source which in all probability would make it very persuasive to a fair minded juror. ’ United States, ex rel. Thompson, v. Dye, Warden, supra, 221 F. 2d 763, 769 (concurring opinion). “Although no ha”
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.