Whitney v. Zerbst’s Empirical Analysis
62 F.2d 970 · 1933
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 4 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently June 1970 · most notably Bishop v. United States (1955), Chandler v. United States (1948)
34 federal appellate · 4 district · 3 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 Ker v. People of the State of Illinois · Charlton v. Kelly · Knewel v. Egan · Mahon v. Justice · Pettibone v. Nichols
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Section 2255, supra, does not enlarge the class of attacks which may be made upon a judgment of conviction. It is limited to matters that may be raised by collateral attack. It is only where the judgment was rendered without jurisdiction, the sentence imposed was not authorized by law, or there was such a denial or infringement of the constitutional rights of the prisoner as to render the judgment vulnerable to collateral attack, that a motion to vacate will lie under this section. “While insanity, in the sense that term is used in the criminal law, at the time the criminal act was done may be asserted as a defense to the criminal charge and present insanity may be asserted as a bar to trial on such charge, the issues with respect to such a defense or bar are for the determination of the court having jurisdiction of the criminal offense. A judgment of conviction may not be collaterally attacked on the ground that the prisoner was insane either at the time of the commission of the offense or at the time of conviction.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Where one seeks discharge from confinement after conviction for an offense upon a petition for habeas corpus, the sole questions presented are whether petitioner was convicted by a court having jurisdiction of his person and the offense, and whether the sentence pronounced was one within the power of the court. The writ cannot be made a substitute for an appeal. Cardigan v. Biddle, 8 Cir., 10 F.2d 444 ; McIntosh v. White, 8 Cir., 21 F.2d 934 ; Knewel v. Egan, 268 U. S. 442 , 45 S.Ct. 522 , 69 L.Ed. 1036”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.