Strickland v. Washington’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
22,242 federal appellate · 3,495 district · 85,144 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 144,035 later decisions (367 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2026 · most notably United States v. Olano (1993), Williams v. Taylor (2000)
22,242 federal appellate · 3,495 district · 85,144 state decisions — followed in 50 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
reviewedBurger v. Zant (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Chapman v. State of California · Glasser v. United States · Johnson v. Zerbst · Gideon v. Wainwright
Cited together with Wainwright v. Sykes · Murray v. Carrier · Coleman v. Thompson · Brady v. State of Maryland · 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 144,035 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”
9,744 later decisions quote this exact passage“right to effective assistance of counsel.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How later courts have treated this case
Across 211 classified citations — whether each later court relied on, limited, or rejected this decision:
- 155followed
- 39explained
- 16cited without characterization
- 1distinguished
Treatment is classified from each citing court's own sentence. This is a running sample — coverage grows as the classification pass proceeds; overrulings are also tracked authoritatively in the case status.