Stephens v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
595 F.2d 1066 · 1979
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently August 2010 · most notably Lightbourne v. Dugger (1987), Porter v. Singletary (1994)
23 federal appellate · 8 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Relies on Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York · Holloway v. Arkansas · Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education · Porter v. United States · United States v. Alvarez
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Stephens was represented by an attorney with an actual, flagrant conflict of interest based on his concurrent representation of a witness for the prosecution to whom he owed the unfettered duty of complete, legitimate support, not the task of undermining and tearing down his acceptability. That prejudice may not be apparent from the record is not significant. The judgment must be reversed and the sentence vacated.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Here, the District Court found that Asinof cut off all communication with Wells after the plea agreement had been reached and conducted an extensive cross-examination of him. Alvarez itself [supra], however, rejected this distinction as immaterial . . . Moreover, this distinction goes more to prejudice than it does to the presence of an actual conflict. Here, Asinof owed conflicting duties to the defendant and a witness for the prosecution. That appearances indicate he ignored his duties to the witness in favor of those owed the defendant is irrelevant."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“"The conflict is apparent: in his role as Wells's attorney, Asinof was obligated to protect Wells's interest and to avoid jeopardizing the plea agreement; as Stephens's attorney, Asinof's responsibility was to make Wells appear as badly as possible and to thereby discredit him and his testimony."”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.