Wainwright v. Greenfield’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
273 federal appellate · 13 district · 839 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,288 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Brecht v. Abrahamson (1993), Moran v. Burbine (1986)
273 federal appellate · 13 district · 839 state decisions — followed in 42 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
reviewedGreenfield v. Wainwright (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Franks v. Delaware · Wainwright v. Sykes · Griffin v. California · Doyle v. Ohio
Cited together with Doyle v. Ohio · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Fletcher v. Weir · Jenkins v. Anderson · Strickland v. Washington
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 1,288 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Doyle rests on `the fundamental unfairness of implicitly assuring a suspect that his silence will not be used against him and then using his silence to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial.'”
41 later decisions quote this exact passage“includes the statement of a desire to remain silent, as well as of a desire to remain silent until an attorney has been consulted.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[T]he evidentiary use of an individual's exercise of his constitutional rights after the State's assurance that the invocation of those rights will not be penalized”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.