Morris v. Slappy’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
1,051 federal appellate · 98 district · 1,010 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,232 later decisions (30 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Teague v. Lane (1989), United States v. Cronic (1984)
1,051 federal appellate · 98 district · 1,010 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
reviewedSlappy v. Morris (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Glasser v. United States · Faretta v. California · Gideon v. Wainwright · Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Chambers v. Maroney
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Ungar v. Sarafite · Wheat v. United States · Faretta v. California · United States v. Cronic
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 3,232 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[n]ot every restriction on counsel's time or opportunity to investigate or to consult with his client or otherwise to prepare for trial violates a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel.”
104 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“meaningful relationship between an accused and his counsel.”
21 later decisions quote this exact passage“conclusion that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel “would be without substance if it did not include the right to a meaningful attorney-client relationship,” is without basis in the law. No authority was cited for this novel ingredient of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of counsel, and of course none could be. No court could possibly guarantee that a defendant will develop the kind of rapport with his attorney — privately retained or provided by the public — that the Court of Appeals thought part of the Sixth Amendment guarantee of counsel.”
19 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.