Stringer v. Black’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
393 federal appellate · 65 district · 258 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,144 later decisions (36 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Williams v. Taylor (2000), Thompson v. Keohane (1995)
393 federal appellate · 65 district · 258 state decisions — followed in 26 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Teague v. Lane · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Eddings v. Oklahoma
Cited together with Teague v. Lane · Strickland v. Washington · Clemons v. Mississippi · Zant v. Stephens · Lockett v. Ohio
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 1,144 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“when the sentencing body is told to weigh an invalid factor in its decision, a reviewing court may not assume it would have made no difference if the thumb had been removed from death's side of the scale.”
36 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“after a jury has found a defendant guilty of capital murder and found the existence of at least one statutory aggravating factor, it must weigh the aggravating factor or factors against the mitigating evidence.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the court must determine what the sentencer would have done absent”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.