Commonwealth v. Pierce’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
8 federal appellate · 1,136 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,192 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably Commonwealth v. Travaglia (1995), Commonwealth v. Kimball (1999)
8 federal appellate · 1,136 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
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Glasser v. United States · Delaware v. Van Arsdall · Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · McMann v. Richardson
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Commonwealth Ex Rel. Washington v. Maroney · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer · Brady v. State of Maryland
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 1,192 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When reviewing the effectiveness of counsel, we determine first whether the underlying claim has merit. If it does, we then ask whether counsel’s handling of the matter had some reasonable basis designed to effectuate his client’s interests. Counsel is not ineffective unless there was no reasonable basis for the action, and counsel may not be faulted for failing to take baseless or merit-less action. Finally, a finding of ineffectiveness requires a showing that the course of action pursued by counsel was prejudicial to the defendant.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(i) that the underlying claim is of arguable merit; (ii) that counsel had no reasonable basis designed to effectuate the defendant's interests for the act or omission in question; and (iii) that counsel's ineffectiveness actually prejudiced the defendant....”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] [c]onvicted defendant’s claim that counsel’s assistance was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction ... has two components. First, the defendant must show that counsel’s performance was deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so serious that counsel was not functioning as the ‘counsel’ guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced that defense. This requires showing that counsel’s errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable. Unless a defendant makes both showings, it cannot be said that the conviction ... resulted from a breakdown in the adversary process that renders the result unreliable.”
7 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.