Coles v. Peyton’s Empirical Analysis
389 F.2d 224 · 1968
Citation profile
82 federal appellate · 4 district · 47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 176 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2007 · most notably Strickland v. Washington (1984), State v. Lytle (1976)
82 federal appellate · 4 district · 47 state decisions — followed in 22 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
Relies on Gideon v. Wainwright · Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Estes v. Texas · E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Maloney
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 176 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Counsel for an indigent defendant should be appointed promptly. Counsel should be afforded a reasonable opportunity to prepare to defend an accused. Counsel must confer with his client without undue delay and as often as necessary, to advise him of his rights and to elicit matters of defense or to ascertain that potential defenses are unavailable. Counsel must conduct appropriate investigations, both factual and legal, to determine if matters of defense can be developed, and to allow himself enough time for reflection and preparation for trial.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Switching the burden of proof does not make these startling defenses true but it does put upon the state the exceedingly awkward, if not unbearable, burden of proving the negative. And it is not suggested that the state can prove the negative of such matters more easily than petitioner can prove the positive — the usual reason for switching the burden. Nor do these matters, in my opinion, fall within the category of constitutional defects that must be deemed inherently prejudicial because (1) we intuitively sense prejudice, and (2) the extent of it is simply not practicably susceptible to proof, such as (a) failure to have counsel assigned, (b) appointment of counsel followed immediately by trial, (c) division of responsibility among an entire bar (what’s everyone’s responsibility is no one’s responsibility). Except in such situations, and others of like kind, it is still true that “in most cases involving claims of due process deprivations we require a showing of identifiable prejudice to the accused.” Estes v. State of Texas, 381 U.S. 532 , 542, 85 S.Ct. 1628 , 1632, 1633, 14 L.Ed.2d 543 (1965).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“I think the correct rule is that the burden of showing lack of prejudice falls on the state when, but only when, the petitioner has shown a set of facts that demonstrate prejudice to his defense, inherently or otherwise.”
1 later decision 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.