Coleman v. Thompson’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
4,614 federal appellate · 849 district · 610 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13,621 later decisions (136 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Brecht v. Abrahamson (1993), United States v. Lopez (1995)
4,614 federal appellate · 849 district · 610 state decisions — followed in 41 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
reviewedColeman v. Thompson (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1257 · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Younger v. Harris · Wainwright v. Sykes · Teague v. Lane
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Murray v. Carrier · Wainwright v. Sykes · Harris v. Reed · Williams v. Taylor
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 13,621 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”
349 later decisions quote this exact passage“There is no constitutional right to an attorney in state post-conviction proceedings. Consequently, a petitioner cannot claim constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel in such proceedings.”
187 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“This Court has long held that a state prisoner's federal habeas petition should be dismissed if the prisoner has not exhausted available state remedies as to any of his federal claims.”
81 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.