Griffith v. Kentucky’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
1,756 federal appellate · 154 district · 2,690 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,832 later decisions (112 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably United States v. Booker (2004), Brecht v. Abrahamson (1993)
1,756 federal appellate · 154 district · 2,690 state decisions — followed in 49 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.
Relationships
Relies on Batson v. Kentucky · Mapp v. Ohio · Payton v. New York · Stovall v. Denno · Edwards v. Arizona
Cited together with Batson v. Kentucky · Teague v. Lane · United States v. Olano · Apprendi v. New Jersey · 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 5,832 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a new rule for the conduct of criminal prosecutions is to be applied retroactively to all cases, state or federal, pending on direct review or not yet final.”
116 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“selective application of new rules violates the principle of treating similarly situated [parties] the same.”
77 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a judgment of conviction has been rendered, the availability of appeal exhausted, and the time for a petition for certiorari elapsed or a petition for certiorari finally denied.”
69 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.