Ferensic v. Birkett’s Empirical Analysis
501 F.3d 469 · 2007
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Jackson v. Bradshaw (2012), Chinnery v. People (2011)
7 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Chapman v. State of California · Williams v. Taylor · Kotteakos v. United States · Brecht v. Abrahamson
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“'grave doubt' ... mean[s] that, in the judge's mind, the matter is so evenly balanced that he feels himself in virtual equipoise as to the harmlessness of the error.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Hendrix v. Palmer“'stripping the erroneous action from the whole' and determining the sufficiency of what is left 'standing alone.'”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Hendrix v. Palmer
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.