Commonwealth v. Jones’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “We now hold that review under [28 U.S.C.] § 2254(d)(1) [ {Habeas Corpus) ] is limited to the record that was before the state court that adjudicated the claim on the merits. Section 2254(d)(1) refers, in the past tense, to a state-court adjudication that “resulted in” a decision that was contrary to, or “involved” an unreasonable application of, established law. This backward-looking language requires an examination of the state-court decision at the time it was made. It follows that the record under review is limited to the record in existence at that same time ie., the record before the state court. This understanding of the text is compelled by “the broader context of the statute as a whole,” which demonstrates Congress’ intent to channel prisoners’ claims first to the state courts. Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341 , 117 S.Ct. 843 , 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997). “The federal habeas scheme leaves primary responsibility with the state courts____” [Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 27 , 123 S.Ct. 357 , 154 L.Ed.2d 279 (2002) ]. Section 2254(b) requires that prisoners must ordinarily exhaust state remedies before filing for federal habeas relief. It would be contrary to that purpose to allow a petitioner to overcome an adverse state-court decision with new evidence introduced in a federal habeas court and reviewed by that court in the first instance effectively de novo. Limiting [Section] 2254(d)(1) review to the state-court record is consistent "with our precedents in”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Davido, T., Aplt