Case Citator › Pennsylvania v. Ritchie

Pennsylvania v. Ritchie

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
480 U.S. 39
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
80 of 80
Citing cases (total)
2,518
Treatment dates
1996–1997
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Pennsylvania v. Ritchie has been limited: all 80 flagged citations have been read, with the 2 confirmed treatments listed below. The Supreme Court confined Ritchie's separate jurisdictional-finality ruling to its extraordinary facts, and the Fourth Circuit required a more specific showing before in-camera review of a witness's presentence report.
More on how this was screened

The other opinions applied Ritchie's due-process framework, distinguished its own confidential-record boundary, rejected adverse arguments, or placed nearby treatment language on state precedents and unrelated Confrontation Clause cases. Duplicate reporter clusters for United States v. Trevino were screened but produce one entry.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

2,518 later cases cite Pennsylvania v. Ritchie; 80 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Pennsylvania v. Ritchie?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Supreme Court confined Ritchie's jurisdictional departure from the statutory final-judgment rule to its precise circumstances and rejected expanding the Cox Broadcasting exceptions through Ritchie.

    Jefferson v. City of Tarrant · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    Ritchie is an extraordinary case and we confine it to the precise circumstances the Court there confronted. We now clarify that Ritchie does not augur expansion of the exceptions stated in Cox Broadcasting Corp., and we reject any construction of Ritchie that would contradict this opinion.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Fourth Circuit required more than Ritchie's plausible-showing threshold before in-camera review of a government witness's presentence report, demanding a specific explanation of materiality and favorability.

    United States v. Carlos Trevino · Fourth Circuit · filed

    Further, in light of the important policy concerns attendant to the preparation and use of PSRs, we are not confident that the Ritchie threshold standard of evaluating the accused’s proffer of materiality and favorability adequately protects the compelling public and private interests in keeping confidential the data assembled therein; more than ‘some plausible showing’ is needed. We therefore hold that, as a prerequisite to an in camera review, an accused must plainly articulate how the information contained in the PSR will be both material and favorable to his defense.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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