Smith v. Murray’s Empirical Analysis
1986
Citation profile
726 federal appellate · 139 district · 521 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,407 later decisions (67 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Coleman v. Thompson (1991), Teague v. Lane (1989)
726 federal appellate · 139 district · 521 state decisions — followed in 35 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
reviewedGibson v. Zahradnick (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2243 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Mapp v. Ohio · Wainwright v. Sykes · Fay v. Noia · Murray v. Carrier
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Murray v. Carrier · Wainwright v. Sykes · Coleman v. Thompson · Engle v. Isaac
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 2,407 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“process of 'winnowing out weaker arguments on appeal and focusing on' those more likely to prevail, far from being evidence of incompetence, is the hallmark of effective appellate advocacy.”
45 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“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 majoritye.g. Murray v. Carrier · Schlup v. Delo“the profound societal costs that attend the exercise of habeas jurisdiction,”
24 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.