Wallace v. Kemp’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate ·

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Among the duties and responsibilities given United States district courts by Congress is that of considering and deciding applications of state prisoners for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the state prisoner “is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws ... of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (a). This congressionally imposed duty and responsibility results in United States district courts — the trial courts of the federal court system — reviewing state criminal convictions that have already been reviewed by a Georgia trial court, a Georgia habeas court, and the state Supreme Court and found by them to be without United States Constitutional error. United States district court decisions are made by one district judge; the state trial, habeas and appellate court decisions are made by one trial, one habeas, and seven Supreme Court judges. As a practical matter Congress has thus created a federal habeas system which requires one United States district judge to review and agree or disagree with the opinions of nine Georgia trial and appellate judges on constitutional questions. Most United States district court judges dislike their role in state prisoner habeas actions as much as state trial and appellate judges dislike the concept of one federal judge reviewing the opinions of at least nine state judges. See Schneckloth, v. Bustamante, 412 U.S. 218, 263-64 , 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2066-67 , 36 L.Ed.2d 854, 884 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring). Nevertheless, unti”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 591 F. Supp. 1136 - Ruffin v. Zant