Ward v. Sternes’s Empirical Analysis
334 F.3d 696 · 2003
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 68 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Taylor v. Maddox (2004), Byrd v. Workman (2011)
36 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 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 · Miller-El v. Cockrell Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division · Chapman v. State of California · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Johnson v. Zerbst
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 68 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“As is the case under section 2254(d)(1), a petitioner’s challenge to a decision based on a factual determination will not succeed if the petitioner merely evidences that the state court committed error. Instead, he must further establish that the state court committed unreasonable error. And, section 2254(d)(1) provides a mechanism by which the petitioner can prove that unreasonableness. If the petitioner can show that the state court determined the underlying factual issue against the clear and convincing weight of the evidence, the petitioner has not only established that the court committed error on reaching a decision based on that faulty factual premise, but has also gone a long way towards proving that it committed unreasonable error. A state court decision that rests upon a determination of fact that lies against the clear weight of the evidence is, by definition, a decision so inadequately supported by the record as to be arbitrary and, therefore, objectively unreasonable.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wozny v. Grams“To run afoul of § 2254(d)(1)'s contrary-to standard, the state court must have either (i) adopted a rule that contradicts the governing law of the U.S. Supreme Court or (ii) on a set of facts materially indistinguishable from those at issue in the applicable Supreme Court precedent, reached a different result.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Walker v. Litscher“Under the `unreasonable application' clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing principle from the Court's decisions but unreasonably applies the principle to the facts of the prisoner's case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Walker v. Litscher
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.