Sawyer v. Whitley’s Empirical Analysis
945 F.2d 812 · 1991
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 59 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2024 · most notably Sawyer v. Whitley (1992), Martinez-Villareal v. Lewis (1996)
20 federal appellate · 2 district · 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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Jackson v. Virginia · Burger King Corporation v. Rudzewicz · Gregg v. Georgia · Murray v. Carrier · Lockett v. Ohio
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 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he requirement of cause in the abuse of the writ context is based on the principle that petitioner must conduct a reasonable and diligent investigation aimed at including all relevant claims and grounds for relief in the first petition____ If what petitioner knows or could discover on reasonable investigation supports a claim for relief in the ... petition, what he does not know is irrelevant. Omission of the claim will not be excused merely because evidence discovered later might also have supported or strengthened the claim.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If the petitioner raises a claim that a federal court has already considered in a previous habeas corpus petition, we may review the merits of the successive claim only when 'the prisoner supplements his constitutional claim with a colorable showing of factual innocence.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“presented a question which is debatable among jurists of reason”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. May v. Collins · May v. Collins
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.