Colson v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
438 F.2d 1075 · 1971
Citation profile
62 federal appellate · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 111 later decisions — most recently April 2012 · most notably Copas v. Commissioner of Correction (1995), Wilbert Herring v. W. J. Estelle, Director, Texas Department of Corrections (1974)
62 federal appellate · 30 state decisions
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 Brady v. United States · McMann v. Richardson · McCarthy v. United States · Swain v. State of Alabama · Von Moltke v. Gillies
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 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A necessary result of the seriousness with which courts treat pleas of guilty, however, is that courts have a concomitant responsibility to assure that defendants who plead guilty do so voluntarily and knowingly. . . . We think that an equally important aspect of the courts' responsibilities in this problem area is the protection of the accused's right to the benefit of reasonably competent counsel in making his plea, especially when that plea is entered on advice of counsel. One cannot read the Supreme Court's opinions in McMann, Parker and Brady, supra, without being impressed by the significance the Court attached to the role of counsel in the process of deciding how to plead. In all three cases, it was obvious that the Supreme Court envisioned a system under which the defendant, advised by reasonably competent counsel, makes an informed and conscious choice . . . In any particular case in which the system fails . . . it is the courts' duty to supply relief.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“guilty pleas are meant to be and should be final. And if there was ever any doubt in our minds of the inviolability of that principle, there is certainly no longer any doubt after the Supreme Court's recent decision declaring with unmistakable clarity its firm commitment to the finality of guilty pleas.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is clear that a defendant is entitled to the effective assistance of counsel in determining how to plead and in making his plea, and can attack his conviction collaterally if he is not given this right.”
2 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.