Thomas v. Allen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a] court must consider the Flynn Effect and the standard error of measurement in determining whether a petitioner’s IQ score falls within a range containing scores that are less than” seventy); Walker v. True, 399 F.3d 315, 322-23 (4th Cir.2005) (vacating district court’s opinion which dismissed the habeas petition, and remanding for consideration of”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Smith v. Ryan · Thorson v. State

2. “is the name in recognition of the central role played by Professor James- R. Flynn in discovering and, in a series of fifteen or more publications between 1984 and today, documenting the fact that IQ scores have been increasing in one generation to the next in all fourteen nations for which IQ data is available For the Wechsler (WISC and WAIS) and the Stanford-Binet IQ tests, the best rule of thumb is that Full Scale IQ gains have been proceeding at a rate of 0.30 points per year ever since 1947. This rate is based on comparisons of all the Wechsler and Standford-Binet tests used in recent years.... It means that for every year the test passes between when an IQ test was normed, that is, when its standardization sample was tested, obsolescence has inflated their IQs by 0.30 points.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Thorson v. State

3. “has been estimated to be three to five points for well-standardized measures of general intellectual functioning. This means that if an individual is retested with the same instrument, the second obtained score would be within one SEM (i.e., ± 3 to 4 IQ points) of the first estimate about two thirds of the time.... Therefore, an IQ of 70 is most accurately understood not as a precise score, but as a range of confidence with parameters of at least one SEM (i.e., scores of about 66 to 74; 66% probabili ty), or parameters of two SEMs (i.e., scores of 62 to 78; 95% probability).... This is a critical consideration that must be part of any decision concerning a diagnosis of mental retardation. 11”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 762 F. Supp. 2d 849 - United States v. Hardy