Collins v. Scully’s Empirical Analysis
755 F.2d 16 · 1985
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 91 later decisions — most recently February 2020 · most notably Dunnigan v. Keane (1998), Blissett v. Lefevre (1991)
9 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 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 United States v. Agurs · Chambers v. Mississippi · United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal · Stafford v. Oklahoma
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 91 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“in light of the entire record before the jury.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“On the other hand, since we have rejected the suggestion that the prosecutor has a constitutional duty routinely to deliver his entire file to defense counsel, we cannot consistently treat every nondisclosure as though it were error. It necessarily follows that the judge should not order a new trial every time he is unable to characterize a nondisclosure as harmless under the customary harmless-error standard. Under that standard when error is present in the record, the reviewing judge must set aside the verdict and judgment unless his "conviction is sure that the error did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect.” Unless every nondisclosure is regarded as automatic error, the constitutional standard of materiality must impose a higher burden on the defendant. The proper standard of materiality must reflect our overriding concern with the justice of the finding of guilt. Such a finding is permissible only if supported by evidence establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It necessarily follows that if the omitted evidence creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist, constitutional error has been committed. This means that the omission must be evaluated in the context of the entire record. If there is no reasonable doubt about guilt whether or not the additional evince[sic] is considered, there is no justification for a new trial. On the other hand, if the verdict is already of questionable validity, additional evidence of relatively minor importa”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In order to prevail on a claim that an evidentiary error deprived the defendant of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment he must show that the error was so pervasive as to have denied him a fundamentally fair trial.”
3 later decisions 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.