United States v. Rivera’s Empirical Analysis
900 F.2d 1462 · 1990
Citation profile
285 federal appellate · 11 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 478 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States of America v. Juan Martinez (2002), United States v. Salameh (1998)
285 federal appellate · 11 district · 20 state decisions — followed in 13 states
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 18 U.S.C. § 1952 · 18 U.S.C. § 3142 (Bail Reform Act of 1984) · 18 U.S.C. § 3500 · 18 U.S.C. § 371 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 846 (§ 406 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 848 (§ 408 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 952
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Brady v. State of Maryland · Chapman v. State of California · Kotteakos v. United States · Delaware v. Van Arsdall
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 478 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A cumulative-error analysis merely aggregates all the errors that individually have been found to be harmless, and therefore not reversible, and it analyzes whether their cumulative effect on the outcome of the trial is such that collectively they can no longer be determined to be harmless.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“it had a 'substantial influence' on the outcome or leaves one in 'grave doubt' as to whether it had such effect.”
23 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”
11 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.