Sears v. Upton’s Empirical Analysis
2010
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 21 state decisions
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Supreme Court of Georgia)
Relationships
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Williams v. Taylor · Wiggins v. Smith, Warden · Rompilla v. Beard · Porter v. McCollum
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 137 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Although here, the Petitioner can argue that a prior appeal shows the difficulty one juror was having reaching the same verdict as the others, it is just not possible to know what effect a different mitigation theory would have had on her, just as it is impossible to know what effect it would have had on other jurors.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 30B.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Sears v. Upton“We have never limited the prejudice inquiry under Strickland to cases in which there was only 'little or no mitigation evidence' presented. ... [W]e also have found deficiency and prejudice in other cases in which counsel presented what could be described as a superficially reasonable mitigation theory during the penalty phase.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.