Williamson v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 17 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he standard of conduct for lawyers is set forth in Seales v. State, 580 S.W.2d 733, 735 (Mo. banc 1979), “ ‘The accepted standard for effectiveness of trial counsel is now established as that degree of performance which conforms to the care and skill of a reasonably competent lawyer rendering similar services under the existing circumstances. (Citations omitted.) Furthermore, there is a presumption that counsel is competent (citation omitted), and the petitioner must shoulder a heavy burden to override this presumption. (Citations omitted.) Finally, the exercise of reasonable judgment, even when hindsight reveals a mistake in that judgment, does not render a lawyer negligent or lacking in competence in rendering his service.’ ” Here, as in the Benson case, there is a claimed omission to raise the Duren issue. At page 545, the essence of the Benson holding on the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel is stated: “Nor does the effort to mount an attack upon the Jackson County jury selection system in Duren and Lee [v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 461 , 99 S.Ct. 710 , 58 L.Ed.2d 736 ] demonstrate that any reasonably competent lawyer should have undertaken the same effort, even if the means were at hand. The possibilities of success in that effort were truly speculative and it is obvious that many lawyers considered them futile. The ultimate vindication of the claim does not render incompetent those who did not believe that the effort would succeed and that it is true whether the do”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Merritt v. State