Stevens v. Zant’s Empirical Analysis
968 F.2d 1076 · 1992
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 31 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently February 2023 · most notably Chandler v. United States (2000), Brecheen v. Reynolds (1994)
26 federal appellate · 31 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
Relies on Strickland v. Washington · Chapman v. State of California · Coleman v. Thompson · Wainwright v. Sykes · Estelle v. McGuire
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the sentencer . . . would have concluded that the balance of aggravating and mitigating circumstances did not warrant death.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Daniels v. State · Hunt v. State“Nonetheless, the mere incantation of 'strategy' does not insulate attorney behavior from review; an attorney must have chosen not to present mitigating evidence after having investigated the defendant's background, and that choice must have been reasonable under the circumstances.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]rial counsel's failure to present mitigating evidence is not per se ineffective assistance of counsel.”
3 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.