Wainwright v. Sykes’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
4,589 federal appellate · 480 district · 1,299 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11,726 later decisions (253 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Jackson v. Virginia (1979), Anderson v. City of Bessemer City (1985)
4,589 federal appellate · 480 district · 1,299 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
reviewedWainwright v. Sykes (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Chapman v. State of California · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Johnson v. Zerbst · Barker v. Wingo
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Engle v. Isaac · Murray v. Carrier · Fay v. Noia · Reed v. Ross
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 11,726 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the 'main event' ... rather than a 'tryout on the road.'”
98 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“absent a showing of cause for the noncompliance and some showing of actual prejudice resulting from the alleged constitutional violation.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Smith v. Murray · Thacker v. Rees“(b) An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, or that there is either an absence of available State corrective process or the existence of circumstances rendering such process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner. (c) An applicant shall not be deemed to have exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State, within the meaning of this section, if he has the right under the law of the State to raise, by any available procedure, the question presented.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.