Wiggins v. Smith, Warden’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
2,555 federal appellate · 254 district · 1,599 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7,103 later decisions (75 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably Padilla v. Kentucky (2010), Harrington v. Richter (2011)
2,555 federal appellate · 254 district · 1,599 state decisions — followed in 40 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 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
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 · Williams v. Taylor · Teague v. Lane · Lockett v. Ohio
Cited together with Strickland v. Washington · Williams v. Taylor · Rompilla v. Beard · Coleman v. Thompson · 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 7,103 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary. In any ineffectiveness case, a particular decision not to investigate must be directly assessed for reasonableness in all the circumstances, applying a heavy measure of deference to counsel’s judgments.”
177 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim— (1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
108 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.”
97 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Tucker v. Ozmint · Vasquez v. Jones
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.