Thomas v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
368 F.2d 941 · 1966
Citation profile
100 federal appellate · 2 district · 48 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 164 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2022 · most notably The Boeing Company v. Daniel C. Shipman (1969), McGautha v. California (1971)
100 federal appellate · 2 district · 48 state decisions — followed in 23 states
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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2113 · 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Fay v. Noia · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Douglas v. People of State of California · Williams v. People of State of New York · McNabb v. United States
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 164 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * upon the ground that the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, or that the court was without jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise subject to collateral attack * * *. (Emphasis added).”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If you will come clean and make a clean breast of this thing for once and for all, the Court will take that into account in the length of sentence to be imposed. If you persist, however, in your denial, as you did a moment ago, that you participated in this robbery, the Court must take that into account.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Our part in the administration of federal justice requires that we reject the theory that a person may be punished because in good faith he defends himself when charged with a crime, even though his effort proves unsuccessful. It is evident that the punishment imposed by the district court on the defendant was in part for the fact that he had availed himself of his right to a trial, and only in part for the crime for which he was indicted.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Vaughn 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.