Stewart v. Dugger’s Empirical Analysis
877 F.2d 851 · 1989
Citation profile
17 federal appellate · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently September 2012 · most notably Waters v. Thomas (1995), United States v. Brown (2006)
17 federal appellate · 4 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Wainwright v. Sykes · Murray v. Carrier · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Wainwright v. Witt
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Trial counsel made a strategic decision that in light of the atrocious nature of the offense, Stewart’s only chance of avoiding the death penalty was if some seed of doubt, even if insufficient to constitute reasonable doubt, could be placed in the minds of the jury. This court has repeatedly recognized the impact such an argument may have upon a jury, [citations omitted] Every court which has ruled upon Stewart’s claims has recognized that under the circumstances of this rape and murder, defense counsel had little with which to work in arguing against death. Trial counsel cannot be faulted for attempting to make the best of a bad situation. Defense counsel presented a logical and well-constructed argument inviting the jury to believe that the defendant left the victim alive and another party, said to be a dope addict, committed the murder. This was a classic attempt to create lingering doubt in the minds of jurors as to Stewart’s guilt, [citations omitted] Counsel was not constitutionally deficient for devoting his resources, both in terms of argument time and pretrial investigation, to such a strategy.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“While reviewing the Caldwell claim raised by Stewart and addressed above, this court noticed other occasions where defense counsel, the prosecutor and the trial judge touched on functions of the jury which might have been asserted as implicating Caldwell in a manner different from that which had been suggested by Stewart. The court sua sponte requested supplemental briefing and then addressed the merits of some, but not all, of these other, potential Caldwell issues. See Stewart v. Dugger, 847 F.2d 1486 , 1489-1493. (11th Cir.1988).”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The court, sua sponte, reconsiders this case insofar as our previous opinion addressed an issue which had been raised by the court sua sponte and unadvisedly. For the reasons stated, one section of our previous opinion ... is stricken and a statement of the reasons for its being stricken is inserted.”
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.