Wells v. Murray’s Empirical Analysis
831 F.2d 468 · 1987
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently December 2020 · most notably United States v. Bakker (1991), United States v. Higgs (2003)
17 federal appellate · 1 district ·
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. Bagley · Wainwright v. Sykes · Davis v. Alaska · Murray v. Carrier · Irvin v. Dowd
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It was simply not open to Wells to claim pure self-defense when he had initiated the altercation by approaching the unarmed victim and pointing a loaded shotgun at him.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The district court found the evidence that was produced cannot show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt under the elements of the crime of rape as defined and applied by the Virginia courts. In this case, there was no semen in the vagina. There were small bruises found outside the vagina, but there were no injuries found in the vagina and there was no testimony concerning when the bruises occurred. The state pathologist testified that the bruises could have been caused by penetration of “something, a penis, a finger, an object, something.” With such evidence, no rational fact-finder could have found proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That the jury found rape in this case is most likely explained by the inaccurate pre-trial information concerning other rapes supposedly committed by Tuggle, as well as the public pressure surrounding this notorious ease, which was heightened by press contacts with jurors, prior to trial. The court grants the petitioner’s petition for habeas relief on this ground.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[o]nly in extreme circumstances may prejudice be presumed from the existence of pretrial publicity itself.”
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.