Arsenault v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
123 federal appellate · 16 district · 157 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 401 later decisions (31 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2020 · most notably Brady v. United States (1970), McMann v. Richardson (1970)
123 federal appellate · 16 district · 157 state decisions — followed in 28 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 · Stovall v. Denno · Douglas v. People of State of California · Hamilton v. Alabama · White v. State of Maryland
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 401 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right to counsel at the trial (Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 , 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799) on appeal (Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 , 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811) and at the other 'critical' stages of the criminal proceedings (Hamilton v. Alabama, [ 368 U.S. 52 , 82 S.Ct. 157, 7 L.Ed.2d 114]) have all been made retroactive, since the 'denial of the right must almost invariably deny a fair trial.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When one pleads to a capital charge without benefit of counsel, we do not stop to determine whether prejudice resulted [citations omitted]. In this case ... the degree of prejudice can never be known. Only the presence of counsel could have enabled this accused to know all the defenses available to him and to plead intelligently.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. McBryar v. McElroy
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.