Jones v. Barnes’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
918 federal appellate · 258 district · 1,987 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,912 later decisions (57 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Penson v. Ohio (1988), Teague v. Lane (1989)
918 federal appellate · 258 district · 1,987 state decisions — followed in 49 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
reviewedBarnes v. Jones (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Anders v. California · Glasser v. United States · Johnson v. Zerbst · Faretta v. California · Wainwright v. Sykes
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Evitts v. Lucey · Coleman v. Thompson · Williams v. Taylor · Murray v. Carrier
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 4,912 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Experienced advocates since time beyond memory have emphasized the importance of winnowing out weaker arguments on appeal and focusing on one central issue if possible, or at most on a few key issues.”
179 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Evitts v. Lucey · Thomas v. Lewis“process of 'winnowing out weaker arguments on appeal and focusing on' those more likely to prevail, far from being evidence of incompetence, is the hallmark of effective appellate advocacy.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he accused has the ultimate authority to make [the] decision[ ] . . . whether to . . . take an appeal.”
12 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.