Woods v. McBride’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

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 27 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]e agree with the state’s argument that,' in certain respects, what Woods has characterized as a “conflict” with his counsel is really nothing more than an attempt to advance an ineffective assistance of PCR counsel claim while sidestepping procedural default. Viewed in that light, there was certainly nothing unreasonable about PCR counsel’s decision to push forward with a powerful mitigation strategy at the PCR hearing and to elicit mitigation testimony from Woods himself (who, at trial counsel’s suggestion, chose not to take the stand in the penalty phase). Central to the post-conviction litigation strategy was the effort to frame and support the argument that trial counsel was constitutionally defective, and as discussed at length above, a cornerstone of that strategy was to elicit additional details at the PCR hearing that would suggest that trial counsel was not up to snuff during the penalty phase. We have already disposed of that line of argument, but it is equally clear to us that PCR counsel’s strategy was a sound one. PCR counsel did, after all, turn up additional mitigation details — albeit details insufficient to indicate that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in not eliciting those details the first time around. [[Image here]] As far as Woods’s suggestion of an “actual conflict of interest,”'we find at most a disagreement between Woods and his PCR counsel as to strategy. We have found that personality conflicts and dis agreements over trial strateg”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Woods v. State

2. “In the habeas context, an “unreasonable” application is more than simply an “incorrect” application, so “a federal ha-beas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in an independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly.” Rather, in order to trigger grant of the writ, the state-court decision must be both incorrect and unreasonable.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 45 F. Supp. 3d 854 - United States ex rel. Gilzene v. Pfister