Reed v. Ross’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
872 federal appellate · 204 district · 208 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,141 later decisions (56 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Coleman v. Thompson (1991), Brecht v. Abrahamson (1993)
872 federal appellate · 204 district · 208 state decisions — followed in 26 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
reviewedRoss v. Reed (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Faretta v. California · Wainwright v. Sykes · Fay v. Noia · United States v. Frady
Cited together with Wainwright v. Sykes · Murray v. Carrier · Engle v. Isaac · Strickland v. Washington · United States v. Frady
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 2,141 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“where a constitutional claim is so novel that its legal basis is not reasonably available to counsel, a defendant has cause for his failure to raise the claim in accordance with applicable state procedures.”
56 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Murray v. Carrier · Smith v. Murray“that where a constitutional claim is so novel that its legal basis is not reasonably available to counsel, a defendant has cause for his failure to raise the claim in accordance with applicable state procedures.”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“overtur[n] a longstanding and widespread practice to which this Court has not spoken, but which a near-unanimous body of lower court authority has expressly approved.”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.