State v. Watson’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 213 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 223 later decisions — most recently September 2025 · most notably State v. Jenks (1991), State v. Garner (1995)
6 federal appellate · 213 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 Strickland v. Washington · Jackson v. Virginia · Batson v. Kentucky · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Griffin v. California
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 223 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a] prosecutor may state his opinion if it is based on the evidence presented at trial.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“has nothing to do with the nature and circumstances of the offense or the history, character, and background of the offender.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“This process of 'winnowing out weaker arguments on appeal and focusing on' those more likely to prevail, far from being evidence of incompetence, is the hallmark of effective appellate advocacy. * * *”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Rojas
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.