McCleskey v. Zant’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
2,125 federal appellate · 243 district · 368 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,658 later decisions (101 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2026 · most notably Slack v. McDaniel (2000), Coleman v. Thompson (1991)
2,125 federal appellate · 243 district · 368 state decisions — followed in 32 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
reviewedMcCleskey v. Zant (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Brady v. State of Maryland · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Bell v. Wolfish · Giglio v. United States
Cited together with Murray v. Carrier · Coleman v. Thompson · Strickland v. Washington · Wainwright v. Sykes · Teague v. Lane
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 4,658 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a fundamental miscarriage of justice would result from a failure to entertain the claim.”
88 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Omission of the claim will not be excused merely because evidence discovered later might also have supported or strengthened the claim.”
75 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“extraordinary instances when a constitutional violation probably has caused the conviction of one innocent of the crime.”
55 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Schlup v. Delo · Hodge v. Livers
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.