United States v. Goodwin’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
967 federal appellate · 168 district · 1,003 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,779 later decisions (35 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Wayte v. United States (1985), McCleskey v. Kemp (1987)
967 federal appellate · 168 district · 1,003 state decisions — followed in 46 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. Goodwin (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on North Carolina v. Pearce · Bordenkircher v. Hayes · Blackledge v. Perry · Oyler v. Boles
Cited together with Bordenkircher v. Hayes · North Carolina v. Pearce · Blackledge v. Perry · Alabama v. Smith · Chaffin v. Stynchcombe
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 2,779 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a change in the charging decision made after an initial trial is completed is much more likely to be improperly motivated than is a pretrial decision.”
124 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for his doing so must affirmatively appear.”
35 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“only in cases in which a reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness exists.”
34 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.