Burger v. Kemp’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
734 federal appellate · 93 district · 691 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,080 later decisions (24 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Kyles v. Whitley (1995), Wiggins v. Smith, Warden (2003)
734 federal appellate · 93 district · 691 state decisions — followed in 41 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 Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Glasser v. United States · Gregg v. Georgia · Gault · Cuyler v. Sullivan
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Williams v. Taylor · Cuyler v. Sullivan · Wiggins v. Smith, Warden · Darden v. Wainwright
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 2,080 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Our duty to search for constitutional error with painstaking care is never more exacting than it is in a capital case.”
103 later decisions quote this exact passage“Counsel's actions are usually based, quite properly, on informed strategic choices made by the defendant and on information supplied by the defendant.”
38 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.”
5 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.