Pulley v. Harris’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
636 federal appellate · 132 district · 1,228 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,981 later decisions (62 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2022 · most notably Strickland v. Washington (1984), Estelle v. McGuire (1991)
636 federal appellate · 132 district · 1,228 state decisions — followed in 35 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
reviewedHarris v. Pulley (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Solem v. Helm · Eddings v. Oklahoma
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Gregg v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Zant v. Stephens · Estelle v. McGuire
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 2,981 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is thus no basis in our cases for holding that comparative proportionality review by an appellate court is required in every case in which the death penalty is imposed and the defendant requests it.”
59 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“disproportionate to the punishment imposed on others convicted of the same crime.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Cooey v. Coyle · State v. Cooper“A federal court may not issue the writ on the basis of a perceived error of state law.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Jones v. Thieret · Gallegos v. Borg
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.