Stenson v. Lambert’s Empirical Analysis
504 F.3d 873 · 2007
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 57 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably State v. Don Chappell (2010), United States v. Taylor (2016)
11 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 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 · Miller-El v. Cockrell Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division · Johnson v. Zerbst · Williams v. Taylor · Faretta v. California
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 57 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Strickland counsels that attorneys have a “duty to make reasonable investigations” regarding whether admissible evidence exists. In evaluating attorneys’ judgments as to whether to pursue evidence, courts must consider “whether the known evidence would lead a reasonable attorney to investigate further.” We apply a “heavy measure of deference to [an attorney’s] judgments” as to whether additional evidence may be adduced by further investigation. As the district court said, “[i]f the decision not to investigate beyond a certain point is reasonable, then the failure to do so cannot constitute ineffective assistance of counsel.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“contrary to, or involving] an unreasonable application of federal law”). And Stenson reasoned that ”[t]he testimony the trial court excluded encompassed a very narrow swath of evidence, revealing only what [defendant’s] family members' opinions were as to the sentence [he] should receive.” Id. at 892 (emphasis added). Stenson is thus consistent with Mitchell insofar as indicating it is improper to allow a family member to offer an opinion on the jury’s verdict. The government emphasizes Stenson’s statement that the defendant”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Because the Supreme Court has not directly considered this issue, the state appellate court's determination that the trial court's exercise of discretion to exclude expert testimony ... did not violate [petitioner's] rights cannot be contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Quintero v. Tilton
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.