United States v. Frady’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
3,359 federal appellate · 828 district · 975 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8,274 later decisions (69 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Strickland v. Washington (1984), United States v. Olano (1993)
3,359 federal appellate · 828 district · 975 state decisions — followed in 37 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
reviewedUnited States v. Frady (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1254 · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Wainwright v. Sykes · Fay v. Noia · Stone v. Powell · Rose v. Lundy
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Wainwright v. Sykes · United States v. Young · Murray v. Carrier · Engle v. Isaac
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 8,274 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[p]lain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.”
188 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[This] plain-error exception to the contemporaneous-objection rule is to be `used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result.'”
127 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“not merely that the errors at his trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions.”
73 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.