McCleskey v. Kemp’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
831 federal appellate · 241 district · 1,090 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,101 later decisions (97 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Ring v. Arizona (2002), Hernandez v. New York (1991)
831 federal appellate · 241 district · 1,090 state decisions — followed in 44 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
reviewedMcCleskey v. Kemp (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green · Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine · Batson v. Kentucky · Gregg v. Georgia · Imbler v. Pachtman
Cited together with Gregg v. Georgia · Strickland v. Washington · Lockett v. Ohio · Furman v. Georgia · Zant v. Stephens
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 3,101 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the existence of purposeful discrimination.”
180 later decisions quote this exact passage“must prove that the decisionmakers in his case acted with discriminatory purpose.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage“The Constitution prohibits racially biased prosecutorial arguments.”
7 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.