Estelle v. McGuire’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
2,457 federal appellate · 437 district · 920 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8,635 later decisions (39 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Old Chief v. United States (1997), United States v. Gaudin (1995)
2,457 federal appellate · 437 district · 920 state decisions — followed in 43 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
reviewedMcGuire v. Estelle (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Donnelly v. DeChristoforo · Sandstrom v. Montana · Cupp v. Naughten
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Williams v. Taylor · Brecht v. Abrahamson · Jackson v. Virginia · Coleman v. Thompson
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 8,635 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“whether the ailing instruction by itself so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.”
145 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[F]ederal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law.”
116 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]t is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions.”
97 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.