Butler v. McKellar’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
391 federal appellate · 54 district · 215 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,046 later decisions (65 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2024 · most notably Williams v. Taylor (2000), Lockhart v. Fretwell (1993)
391 federal appellate · 54 district · 215 state decisions — followed in 25 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 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · United States v. Leon · Neil v. Biggers · Edwards v. Arizona · Townsend v. Sain
Cited together with Teague v. Lane · Saffle v. Parks · Penry v. Lynaugh · Strickland v. Washington · Sawyer v. Smith
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 1,046 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he 'new rule' principle ... validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts even though they are shown to be contrary to later decisions.”
47 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“susceptible to debate among reasonable minds,”
42 later decisions quote this exact passage“dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final.”
39 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.