Holder v. Palmer’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 federal appellate · 2 state decisions

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.

1. “This court usually reviews findings of fact for clear error, “but when the district court’s decision in a habeas case is based on a transcript from the petitioner’s state court trial, and the district court thus makes no credibility determination or other apparent findings of fact, the district court’s factual findings are reviewed de novo.” Wolfe v. Brigano, 232 F.3d 499, 501 (6th Cir.2000). And because petitioner filed his habeas petition in [2008], the provisions of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) apply. Barker v. Yukins, 199 F.3d 867, 871 (6th Cir.1999) (AEDPA applies to petitions filed after April 24,1996). AEDPA prohibits this court from granting a state prisoner’s habeas petition unless the state court’s decision “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or ... was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the state court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d)(l)-(2). A state court decision is “contrary to clearly established Federal law if the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on a question of law or if the state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at a different result.” Slaughter, 450 F.3d at 232. A state court decision unreasonably applies federal law “if the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. William Moviel v. Clifford Smith

2. “First, the petitioner must show that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. Judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly deferential, and a fair assessment of attorney performance requires that every effort be made to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight, to reconstruct the circumstances of counsel’s challenged conduct, and to evaluate the conduct from counsel’s perspective at the time. A court considering a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel must indulge a strong presumption that counsel’s conduct falls within the wide range of reasonable professional assistance. Second, the petitioner must show that counsel’s performance prejudiced the petitioner. That is, the petitioner must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 744 F. Supp. 2d 684 - Robinson v. United States

3. “If a state court were to reject a prisoner’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel on the grounds that the prisoner had not established by a preponderance of the evidence that the result of his criminal proceeding would have been different, that decision would be ‘diametrically different,’ ‘opposite in character or nature,’ and ‘mutually opposed’ to our clearly established precedent because we held in Strickland that the prisoner need only demonstrate a ‘reasonable probability that ... the result of the proceeding would have been different.’”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 387 F. App'x 533 - Bradley Leatherman v. Carmen Palmer