Smith v. Black’s Empirical Analysis
904 F.2d 950 · 1990
Citation profile
52 federal appellate · 7 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 126 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably State v. Garner (1995), Stringer v. Black (1992)
52 federal appellate · 7 district · 13 state decisions — followed in 10 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 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Brady v. State of Maryland · Batson v. Kentucky · United States v. Bagley · United States v. Agurs
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 126 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he materiality of Brady evidence depends almost entirely on the value of the evidence relative to the other evidence mustered by the State.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“exempts information that the defense could have obtained from other sources by exercising reasonable diligence”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Smith also argues that the nondisclosure of evidence affected the sentencing phase by contributing to the removal of residual doubt. The trial court rejected Smith’s proffer of an instruction detailing residual doubt as a mitigating circumstance, but its instructions did permit the jury to entertain doubt in that fashion, and Smith’s trial counsel repeatedly stressed the possible innocence of his client in his closing at the sentencing phase. We have previously recognized such reargument of guilt as a sound strategy, [citation omitted] Although Smith was not constitutionally entitled to instruct the jury to consider such residual doubt, [citation omitted], the Supreme Court has subsequently recognized a difference between rules relating to what mitigating evidence the jury may consider and rules relating to instructing the jury how to consider such evidence, [citation omitted] Here the claim is still simpler: Smith asks not for a revision of the court’s determination of what evidence he may present to the jury, but only that we assess the materiality of the Brady violation in light of the mitigating case actually presented for him. We agree that nondisclosure of impeachment evidence may be relevant to the punishment phase, see Lindsey v. King, 769 F.2d at 1042 , and reject the intimation that this aspect of Smith’s claim may have no constitutional footing. Cf. Jones v. Butler, 864 F.2d 348, 357 (5th Cir.1988) (alternative holding), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1075 , 109 S.Ct. 2090”
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.