State v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
4 federal appellate · 580 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 590 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably State v. Jenks (1991), State v. Sage (1987)
4 federal appellate · 580 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 Chapman v. State of California · Mapp v. Ohio · Payton v. New York · Stovall v. Denno · Edwards v. Arizona
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 590 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“where evidence has been improperly admitted in derogation of a criminal defendant's constitutional rights, the admission is harmless `beyond a reasonable doubt' if the remaining evidence alone comprises `overwhelming' proof of defendant's guilt.”
36 later decisions quote this exact passage“any error, defect, irregularity, or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage“[o]nce an accused invokes his right to counsel, all further custodial interrogation must cease and may not be resumed in the absence of counsel unless the accused thereafter effects a valid waiver of his right to counsel or himself renews communication with the police.”
3 later decisions 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.