State v. Syed’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

18 state decisions

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 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[A] court hearing an ineffectiveness claim must consider the totality of the evidence before the ... jury. Some of the factual findings will have been unaffected by the errors, and factual findings that were affected will have been affected in different ways. Some errors will have had a pervasive effect on the inferences [that were] to be drawn from the evidence, altering the entire evidentiary picture, and some will have had an isolated, trivial effect. Moreover, a verdict [that is] only weakly supported by the record is more likely to have been affected by errors than one with overwhelming record support. Taking the unaffected findings as a given, and taking due account of the effect of the errors on the remaining findings, a court making the prejudice inquiry must ask if the [petitioner] has met the burden of showing that the decision [that was] reached would reasonably likely have been different absent the errors.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ramirez v. State

2. “Mr. Syed's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel on the basis that his counsel failed to challenge the cell tower location evidence was waived because he did not raise that as a ground when advancing his ineffective assistance of counsel claim in his petition.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hyman v. State

3. “must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ramirez v. State