West v. Bell’s Empirical Analysis
550 F.3d 542 · 2008
Citation profile
11 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 25 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Davis v. Lafler (2011), Webb v. Mitchell (2009)
11 federal appellate ·
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
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Williams v. Taylor · Kotteakos v. United States · Brecht v. Abrahamson · Chambers v. Mississippi
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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“West then filed a petition for rehearing and, when that was denied, an application for permission to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. The Tennessee Supreme Court allowed West to appeal only the issue of whether there was sufficient evidence to establish the aggravating circumstance, but the court ultimately affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief. West then filed for a petition' for rehearing, which was denied on June 7, 2000.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. West v. Carpenter“Given the strength of the evidence ... we cannot conclude ... ”); see also, e.g., id. at 568 (Moore, X, dissenting) ("Applying the Strickland standard, I conclude that.... Several pieces of evidence demonstrate ...”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“... the record demonstrates ...”), 556 ("Finally, we note that even if West could prove ... he has not shown ...”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.