Townsend v. Sain’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
5,030 federal appellate · 729 district · 1,105 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11,281 later decisions (239 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2023 · most notably Strickland v. Washington (1984), Jackson v. Virginia (1979)
5,030 federal appellate · 729 district · 1,105 state decisions — followed in 50 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedUnited States of America Ex Rel. Charles Townsend v. Frank G. Sain, Sheriff of Cook County, Illinois, and Jack Johnson, Warden of the Cook County Jail (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2243 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2245 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Fay v. Noia · Brown v. Allen · Price v. Johnston · Rogers v. Richmond
Cited together with Fay v. Noia · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Johnson v. Zerbst · Strickland v. Washington · Jackson v. Denno
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 11,281 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We hold that a federal court must grant an evidentiary hearing to a habeas applicant under the following circumstances: If (1) the merits of the factual dispute were not resolved in the state hearing; (2) the state factual determination is not fairly supported by the record as a whole; (3) the fact-finding procedure employed by the state court was not adequate to afford a full and fair hearing; (4) there is a substantial allegation of newly discovered evidence; (5) the material facts were not adequately developed at the state-court hearing; or (6) for any reason it appears that the state trier of fact did not afford the habeas applicant a full and fair fact hearing.”
451 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“we mean to refer to what are termed basic, primary, or historical facts: facts”
36 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“the product of a rational intellect and a free will”
24 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.