Hamilton v. Ol McCotter’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 federal appellate · 2 district · 2 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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A second or successive petition may be dismissed if the judge finds [1] that it fails to allege new or different grounds for relief and the prior determination was on the merits or, [2] if new and different grounds are alleged, the judge finds that the failure of the petitioner to assert those grounds in a prior petition constituted an abuse of the writ.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Passman v. Blackburn · R. Wayne Johnson v. O.L. McCotter Director of Texas Department of Corrections

2. “In particular, appellant’s present challenged ... are ... matters appearing on the face of the state trial record or ... matters appearing on the face of the state trial record which were necessarily obvious to both state trial counsel and habeas counsel and, to the extent that they might have any validity as grounds for federal habeas relief on their own merits, would likewise constitute a basis for an assertion of ineffective assistance of state trial counsel. ****** Thus, regardless of how limited the representation implicated in the eviden-tiary hearing in appellant’s first federal habeas proceedings may have been, it is inescapable that at the least these issues were precisely the kind which would have been searched for and evaluated, and which, if meritorious, would have been raised by appointed counsel.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Byrne v. Butler

3. “the state record reflect[ed] that the proceedings were fundamentally fair, that their result and the finding of guilt are reliable, and that no breakdown of the adversarial process rendered them otherwise”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Goodwin v. Johnson