Baze v. Rees’s Empirical Analysis
2008
Citation profile
371 federal appellate · 27 district · 318 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 962 later decisions (28 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2026 · most notably Miller v. Alabama (2012), Graham v. Florida (2010)
371 federal appellate · 27 district · 318 state decisions — followed in 24 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 Kentucky Supreme Court)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3591 (§ 60002 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994)
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Williams v. Taylor · Farmer v. Brennan · Bell v. Wolfish · Gregg v. Georgia
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 962 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A stay of execution may not be granted on grounds such as those asserted here unless the condemned prisoner establishes that the State’s lethal injection protocol creates a demonstrated risk of severe pain. He must show that the risk is substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives. A State with a lethal injection protocol substantially similar to the protocol we uphold today would not create a risk that meets this standard.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“merely by showing a slightly or marginally safer alternative.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“' sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,' and gives rise to 'sufficiently imminent dangers.'”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Valle v. Singer · Terrell v. Bryson
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.