Nix v. Whiteside’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
514 federal appellate · 73 district · 624 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,677 later decisions (44 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Williams v. Taylor (2000), Teague v. Lane (1989)
514 federal appellate · 73 district · 624 state decisions — followed in 43 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Glasser v. United States · United States v. Agurs · Hill v. Lockhart
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Cuyler v. Sullivan · United States v. Cronic · Lockhart v. Fretwell · Williams v. Taylor
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 1,677 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] court must be careful not to narrow the wide range of conduct acceptable under the Sixth Amendment so restrictively as to constitutionalize particular standards of professional conduct....”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“These standards confirm that the legal profession has accepted that an attorney’s ethical duty to advance the interests of his client is limited by an equally solemn duty to comply with the law and standards of professional conduct; it specifically ensures that the client may not use false evidence. This special duty of an attorney to prevent and disclose frauds upon the court derives from the recognition that perjury is as much a crime as tampering with witnesses or jurors by way of promises and threats, and undermines the administration of justice.”
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.