Correll v. Ryan’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

30 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions

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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “An uninformed strategy is not a reasoned strategy. It is, in fact, no strategy at all.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Williams v. Filson · Avena v. Chappell

2. “"met only one with Correll’s father, sister, and brother, 'around the kitchen table at the same time,’ and probably spent only '[a] couple hours' with them. Furthermore, Correll’s counsel admitted that he interviewed witnesses only during the guilt phase, not during the sentencing phase. Although the attorney testified that he was looking for mitigation information as well as exculpatory information during those pre-trial interviews, he failed to ask any direct questions or to conduct any direct investigation related to the mitigating factors that are now at issue. When counsel was asked at the evidentiary hearing whether he had questioned the interviewees about Correll’s drug abuse, head injury, psychiatric history, or family dysfunction, counsel testified that he asked no such specific questions but, rather, asked the interviewees simply to ‘tell [him] anything [they could] tell [him] that would help.' As a result, counsel's interviews were substantively worthless. Thus, his failure to gather mitigating information did not result from its unavailability; it resulted from counsel’s complete failure to ask any relevant questions.” Correll, 539 F.3d at 945 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 725 F. Supp. 2d 925 - Lang v. Cullen

3. “The district court dismissed evidence of Correll’s brain injury, concluding that any organic brain injury played no role in Correll’s crimes. The district court’s conclusion was based on the judge’s own evaluation of two conflicting experts. But in the procedural context of this case, the district court’s role was not to evaluate evidence in order to reach a conclusive opinion as to Correll’s brain injury (or lack thereof). The district court should have decided only whether there existed a “reasonable probability” that “an objective fact-finder” in a state sentencing hearing would have concluded, based on the evidence presented, that Correll had a brain injury that impaired his judgment at the time of the crimes.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Jones v. Ryan