Smith v. Zant’s Empirical Analysis
855 F.2d 712 · 1988
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Chapman v. State of California · Johnson v. Zerbst · Townsend v. Sain
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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We agree with the state that prior experience with criminal justice may be relevant in determining whether a waiver of constitutional rights is valid, but we find no evidence on the record to convince us that the prior prosecution of [the defendant] was particularly important in this case. The state offered no testimony to rebut the deeply pessimistic opinions of [defendant’s] experts about [defendant’s] capacity to understand and waive his rights.... Accordingly, we conclude that petitioner did not intelligently waive his Miranda rights.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Q: In your experience, do you find that repeat offenders are more knowledgeable regarding, first of all, the trial system? Have you had any experience with that? A: I have had some experience with that, and to some extent that’s true; to a much lesser, if any extent, with a person who is retarded, obviously, but you didn’t — you know, you didn’t classify it to just retarded people, so for that whole group, yes, one learns from experience, so if they’ve been through the process before, they are more familiar with it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Smith v. Zant“He said he was willing to talk. In fact, Sheriff Smith asked him, I believe it was twice, on two different occasions, did he want an attorney and he said no, he did not.... He was simply asked did he want to make a statement, and he gave us the full statement which was written down and he signed.... After the statement was complete, I first read it back to him. Then it was given to him to look over before he signed it.... He read it and said he understood it.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Smith v. Zant
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.