Brady v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1970
Citation profile
3,197 federal appellate · 396 district · 4,609 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11,237 later decisions (125 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), North Carolina v. Alford (1970)
3,197 federal appellate · 396 district · 4,609 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
reviewedBrady v. United States (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Boykin v. Alabama · Johnson v. Zerbst · Gideon v. Wainwright
Cited together with McMann v. Richardson · Boykin v. Alabama · Parker v. North Carolina · North Carolina v. Alford · McCarthy 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 11,237 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Waivers of constitutional rights not only must be voluntary but must be knowing, intelligent acts done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.”
188 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A plea of guilty entered by one fully aware of the direct consequences, including the actual value of any commitments made to him by the court, prosecutor, or his own counsel, must stand unless induced by threats (or promises to discontinue improper harassment), misrepresentation (including unfulfilled or unfulfillable promises), or perhaps by promises that are by their nature improper as having no proper relationship to the prosecutor’s business (e.g. bribes).”
125 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] voluntary plea of guilty intelligently made in the light of the then applicable law does not become vulnerable because later judicial decisions indicate that the plea rested on a faulty premise.”
124 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.