Donnelly v. DeChristoforo’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
2,204 federal appellate · 272 district · 1,570 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,612 later decisions (69 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably United States v. Agurs (1976), Imbler v. Pachtman (1976)
2,204 federal appellate · 272 district · 1,570 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedDeChristoforo v. Donnelly (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Brady v. State of Maryland · Griffin v. California · Berger v. United States · Chambers v. Mississippi · Pointer v. Texas
Cited together with Darden v. Wainwright · Strickland v. Washington · Caldwell v. Mississippi · Chapman v. State of California · Wainwright v. Sykes
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 6,612 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.”
207 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] court should not lightly infer that a prosecutor intends an ambiguous remark to have its most damaging meaning or that a jury, sitting through lengthy exhortation, will draw that meaning from the plethora of less damaging interpretations.”
76 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“failure to observe that fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice.”
35 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.