Tollett v. Henderson’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
1,310 federal appellate · 192 district · 1,521 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,969 later decisions (64 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Hill v. Lockhart (1985), Wainwright v. Sykes (1977)
1,310 federal appellate · 192 district · 1,521 state decisions — followed in 49 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
reviewedHenderson v. Tollett (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Johnson v. Zerbst · Brady v. United States · Santobello v. New York · McMann v. Richardson
Cited together with McMann v. Richardson · Brady v. United States · Strickland v. Washington · Boykin v. Alabama · Hill v. Lockhart
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 4,969 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] guilty plea represents a break in the chain of events which has preceded it in the criminal process. When a criminal defendant has solemnly admitted in open court that he is in fact guilty of the offense with which he is charged, he may not thereafter raise independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred prior to the entry of the guilty plea.”
330 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“whether a state prisoner, pleading guilty with the advice of counsel, may later obtain release through federal habeas corpus by proving only that the indictment to which he pleaded was returned by an unconstitutionally selected grand jury.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'[t]he only proper focus of a federal habeas inquiry in such a situation is the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty plea.'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.