Brooks v. Tennessee’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
212 federal appellate · 39 district · 505 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 946 later decisions (51 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Strickland v. Washington (1984), Faretta v. California (1975)
212 federal appellate · 39 district · 505 state decisions — followed in 41 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 Chapman v. State of California · Gideon v. Wainwright · Griffin v. California · Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Malloy v. Hogan
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 946 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“curtail[] in any way the ordinary power of a trial judge to set the order of proof.”
27 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ . . . a defendant may not know at the close of the State’s case whether his own testimony will be necessary or even helpful to his cause. Rather than risk the dangers of taking the stand, he might prefer to remain silent at that point, putting off his testimony until its value can be realistically assessed. Yet, under the Tennessee rule, he cannot make that choice ‘in the unfettered exercise of his own will.’ Section 40-2403 exacts a price for his silence by keeping him off the stand entirely unless he chooses to testify first. This, we think, casts a heavy burden on a defendant’s otherwise unconditional right not to take the stand. The rule, in other words, ‘cuts down on the privilege [to remain silent] by making its assertion costly.’ Griffin v. California, 380 U. S. 609 , 614, 85 S.Ct. 1229 , 1233, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965).” (footnotes omitted) 406 U.S. at 610-611 , 92 S.Ct. at 1894.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“until upon a full survey of all the case as developed by the state, and met by witnesses on his own behalf[,] [h]e may intelligently weigh the advantages and disadvantages of his situation, and, thus advised, determine how to act.”
5 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.