Cullen v. Pinholster’s Empirical Analysis
563 U.S. 170 · 2011
Citation profile
210 federal appellate · 22 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 709 later decisions (66 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably Cullen v. Pinholster (2011), Buck v. Davis (2017)
210 federal appellate · 22 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 22 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 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Brady v. State of Maryland · Slack v. McDaniel · Williams v. Taylor · Coleman v. Thompson
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 709 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(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.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Grant v. Royal · Rhines v. Young“demands that state-court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Green v. Georgia · Porter v. Zook
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.