Maxwell v. Bishop’s Empirical Analysis
1970
Citation profile
66 federal appellate · 3 district · 213 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 374 later decisions (33 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2022 · most notably Furman v. Georgia (1972), Wainwright v. Witt (1985)
66 federal appellate · 3 district · 213 state decisions — followed in 26 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
reviewedMaxwell v. Bishop (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Witherspoon v. Illinois · Boulden v. Holman · McGautha v. California · Maxwell v. Bishop
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 374 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a sentence of death cannot be carried out if the jury that imposed or recommended it was chosen by excluding veniremen for cause simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against its infliction.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Court shall have power, in all cases of conviction, to reduce the extent or duration of the punishment assessed by a jury, if, in the opinion of the court, the conviction is proper, and the punishment assessed is greater than, under the circumstances of the case, ought to be inflicted, so that the punishment be not, in any case, reduced below the limit prescribed by law in such cases.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“No effort was made by the petitioner to seek relief in the state courts under this statute. There is nothing in the record or otherwise reported to us to indicate that this remedy is not now available.”
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.