Williams v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 state decisions

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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “This standard has never been interpreted to mean that the accused is entitled to errorless or perfect counsel. When reviewing a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, judicial scrutiny of counsel’s performance must be highly deferential. Whether the Strickland standard has been met is to be judged by “the totality of the representation.” Isolated instances in the record reflecting errors of commission or omission do not cause counsel to become ineffective, nor can ineffective assistance of counsel be established by isolating or separating out one portion of the trial counsel’s performance for examination. An applicant must show omissions or other mistakes made by counsel that amount to professional errors of a magnitude sufficient to raise a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different but for the errors.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Thacker v. State