McCleskey v. Kemp’s Empirical Analysis
753 F.2d 877 · 1985
Citation profile
91 federal appellate · 3 district · 21 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 171 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2018 · most notably McCleskey v. Zant (1991), McCleskey v. Kemp (1987)
91 federal appellate · 3 district · 21 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Chapman v. State of California · Mathews v. Eldridge · United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · In the Matter of Samuel Winship
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 171 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Pjroof of a disparate impact alone is insufficient to invalidate a capital sentencing system, unless that disparate impact is so great that it compels a conclusion that the system is unprincipled, irrational, arbitrary and capricious such that purposeful discrimination — i.e., race is intentionally being used as a factor in sentencing — can be presumed to permeate the system.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Ross v. Kemp · Andrews v. Shulsen“[t]he detective's statement offered such a marginal benefit ... that it is doubtful it would motivate a reluctant witness, or that disclosure of the statement would have had any effect on his credibility.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“little hope of excluding every possible factor that might make a difference between crimes and defendant, exclusive of race.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Ross v. Kemp · Andrews v. Shulsen
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.