Sawyer v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
400 federal appellate · 74 district · 235 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,120 later decisions (47 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2024 · most notably Williams v. Taylor (2000), Sawyer v. Whitley (1992)
400 federal appellate · 74 district · 235 state decisions — followed in 33 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
reviewedSawyer v. Butler (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Batson v. Kentucky · Anderson v. Creighton · Stovall v. Denno · Wainwright v. Sykes · Gregg v. Georgia
Cited together with Teague v. Lane · Saffle v. Parks · Caldwell v. Mississippi · Strickland v. Washington · Gideon 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 1,120 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“gradual developments in the law over which reasonable jurists may disagree are not later used to upset the finality of state convictions valid when entered.”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Graham v. Collins · Nixon v. State“susceptible to debate among reasonable minds,”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.