Walker v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[In Cronic , t]he [Supreme] Court identified three situations implicating the right to counsel that involved circumstances [that were] so likely to prejudice the [petitioner] that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified. The first situation was where the [petitioner] was completely denied counsel. Complete denial of counsel includes, for example, when counsel was either totally absent, or prevented from assisting the [petitioner] during a critical stage of the proceeding. The second situation warranting a similar presumption of prejudice was if counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing[,] because this results in an adversary process itself that is presumptively unreliable. The final situation was ... where the [petitioner] faces circumstances in which it is not likely that any attorney could provide effective assistance. With the exception of these three situations, a [petitioner] must articulate how specific errors of counsel undermined the reliability of the finding of guilt, i.e. , the [petitioner] must prove [ ] prejudice.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In Re RKS · Ramirez v. State

2. “[a]s a trial strategy, [counsel] decided essentially to remain silent, to protect the record as best as he could under the circumstances, to participate minimally, and to argue jury nullification-the latter of which the Circuit Court did not allow”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Polk v. State · Ramirez v. State

3. “"Judicial scrutiny of counsel's performance must be highly deferential. It is all too tempting for a defendant to second-guess counsel's assistance after conviction or adverse sentence, and it is all too easy for a court, examining counsel's defense after it has proved unsuccessful, to conclude that a particular act or omission of counsel was unreasonable. A fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel's challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel's perspective at the time. Because of the difficulties inherent in making the evaluation, a court must indulge a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance; that is, the defendant must overcome the presumption that, under the circumstances, the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Borchardt