Alabama v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
561 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,611 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,655 later decisions (12 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Payne v. Tennessee (1991), Agostini v. Felton Chancellor Board of Education of the City of New York (1997)
561 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,611 state decisions — followed in 47 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 Boykin v. Alabama · North Carolina v. Pearce · Brady v. United States · Stone v. Powell · Williams v. People of State of New York
Cited together with North Carolina v. Pearce · United States v. Goodwin · Texas v. McCullough · Blockburger v. United States · Wasman v. United States
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 2,655 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the evil the [ Pearce ] Court sought to prevent”
44 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Even when the same judge imposes both sentences, the relevant sentencing information available to the judge after the plea will usually be considerably less than that available after a trial.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"Due process of law, then, requires that vindictiveness against a defendant for having successfully attacked his first conviction must play no part in the sentence he receives after a new trial. And since the fear of such vindictiveness may unconstitutionally deter a defendant's exercise of the right to appeal or collaterally attack his first conviction, due process also requires that a defendant be freed of apprehension of such a retaliatory motivation on the part of the sentencing judge. "In order to assure the absence of such a motivation, we have concluded that whenever a judge imposes a more severe sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for his doing so must affirmatively appear."”
19 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.