Murray v. Carrier’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
3,333 federal appellate · 786 district · 624 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9,476 later decisions (101 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Coleman v. Thompson (1991), Teague v. Lane (1989)
3,333 federal appellate · 786 district · 624 state decisions — followed in 36 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
reviewedCarrier v. Hutto (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2241 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2243 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Brady v. State of Maryland · Johnson v. Zerbst · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Younger v. Harris
Cited together with Wainwright v. Sykes · Strickland v. Washington · Coleman v. Thompson · Engle v. Isaac · McCleskey v. Zant
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 9,476 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent.”
426 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Smith v. Murray · McCleskey v. Zant“not merely that the errors at ... trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions.”
39 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Casale v. Fair · Thacker v. Rees“[W]e think that in an extraordinary case, where a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent, a federal habeas court may grant the writ even in the absence of a showing of cause for the procedural default.”
38 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.