Lane v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
330 federal appellate · 48 district · 76 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 748 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2026 · most notably Lindh v. Murphy (1997), Spencer v. Kemna (1998)
330 federal appellate · 48 district · 76 state decisions — followed in 15 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Boykin v. Alabama · North Carolina v. Pearce · Santobello v. New York · Sibron v. State of New York Peters · Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission
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 748 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Collateral review of a final judgment is not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly. It is not warranted absent a showing that the complainant suffers actual harm from the judgment that he seeks to avoid.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“At most, certain nonstatutory consequences may occur; employment prospects, or the sentence imposed in a future criminal proceeding, could be affected.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[s]ince [petitioners] elected only to attack their sentences and since those sentences expired during the course of these proceedings, this case is moot.”
9 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.