Daniel Torres v. J. Berbary, Superintendent’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 federal appellate · 3 district · 5 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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim (1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lynn v. Bliden · Nowlin v. Greene

2. “A state court decision falls within the unreasonable application clause if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from [the Supreme Court’s] decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case. The Supreme Court has thus far offered little guidance as to the meaning of the term unreasonable application, tautologically instructing federal habeas courts to ask whether the state court’s application was objectively unreasonable. The Supreme Court did caution, however, that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect or erroneous application of federal law. Thus, a federal habeas court is not empowered to grant the writ when, in its independent judgment, it determines that the state court incorrectly applied the relevant federal law. The state court’s application must reflect some additional increment of incorrectness such that it may be said to be unreasonable. However, the increment need not be great; otherwise, habeas relief would be limited to state court decisions so far off the mark as to suggest judicial incompetence.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lynn v. Bliden · Rosa v. McCray

3. “[w]ith respect to the elements of AED-PA deferential review set forth in § 2254(d)(1), a state court’s decision is “contrary to” clearly established . Supreme Court precedent if “the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case differently than [the Supreme] Court has on a set of materially indistinguishable facts.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lynn v. Bliden · Rosa v. McCray