Penson v. Ohio’s Empirical Analysis
1988
Citation profile
905 federal appellate · 39 district · 1,567 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14,933 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Neitzke v. Williams (1989), Roe, Warden v. Flores-Ortega (2000)
905 federal appellate · 39 district · 1,567 state decisions — followed in 43 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 Strickland v. Washington · Anders v. California · Chapman v. State of California · Glasser v. United States · Gideon v. Wainwright
Cited together with Anders v. California · Strickland v. Washington · United States v. Cronic · Evitts v. Lucey · Chapman v. State of California
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 14,933 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a]ctual or constructive denial of the assistance of counsel altogether,”
70 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a brief referring to anything in the record that might arguably support the appeal.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage“the court — not counsel — then proceeds, after a full examination of all the proceedings, to decide whether the case is wholly frivolous.... [I]f it finds any of the legal points arguable on their merits (and therefore not frivolous), it must, prior to decision, afford [appellant] the assistance of counsel to argue the appeal.”
8 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.