Bible v. Ryan’s Empirical Analysis
571 F.3d 860 · 2009
Citation profile
15 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Clabourne v. Ryan (2014), Hamilton v. Ayers (2009)
15 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 · Slack v. McDaniel · Miller-El v. Cockrell Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division · Williams v. Taylor · Wiggins v. Smith, Warden
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We hold that the absence of evidence that was cumulative of what had already been presented ... does not undermine our confidence in the outcome of Bible's sentencing hearing. ... {W}e cannot properly say that the Arizona court’s decision that Bible suffered no prejudice was an unreasonable application of Strickland.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Cox v. Ayers · Cox v. Ayers“On June 6, 1988, around 10:30 a.m., the nine-year-old victim, Jennifer Wilson, began riding her bicycle to a ranch a mile away from where her family was staying in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her family passed her while driving to the ranch, but Jennifer never arrived. The family began to look for her and discovered her bicycle by the side of the road. Within an hour of her disappearance, Jennifer’s mother called the Flagstaff police to report her daughter missing. The Flagstaff police arrived and immediately called in a helicopter, set up roadblocks, and alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Jennifer was missing. A massive police search ensued. But it was not successful. Jennifer’s mother told police that she saw a man driving a royal blue Blazer-type vehicle at a high rate of speed around the time her daughter went missing. Later that day, Bible arrived at his brother’s home near Sheep Hill driving a dark green or silver Blazer-type vehicle. Believing that Bible had been stealing from him, Bible’s brother called the police and described the vehicle. The detective who took Jennifer’s mother’s statement realized that her description of the “Blazer-type” vehicle and its driver substantially matched Bible and the vehicle described by Bible’s brother. Police next discovered that Bible had stolen a GMC Jimmy from a police impound lot near Sheep Hill the day before. Later that evening, police saw Bible driving the stolen GMC vehicle. When police tried to stop Bible, a high-spee”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Bible v. Schriro“Establishing prejudice in the death sentence context requires a showing that there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the sentencer would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant death. The defendant bears the highly demanding and heavy burden of establishing actual prejudice.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Livaditis v. Davis
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.