Case Citator › Strickler v. Greene

Strickler v. Greene

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

Criticized by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
527 U.S. 263
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
116 of 116
Citing cases (total)
4,259
Treatment dates
2003–2005

Status

Criticized by some courts
At least one reviewed court has criticized this case’s reasoning. No reviewed court has overruled it. Strickler v. Greene has been criticized and limited: all 116 flagged citations have been read, and the 2 confirmed treatments are listed below. The District of Columbia district court confined Strickler's post-conviction materiality test from prosecutors' pretrial disclosure decisions, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin criticized as unfair and irrational the differing procedural-default review produced in cases such as Strickler.
More on how this was screened

The other reviewed opinions followed or applied Strickler's Brady framework, distinguished its facts, applied its own reasonable-reliance boundary, or directed nearby adverse-history language at other authorities. Duplicate copies of the same opinions were read separately.

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.

4,259 later cases cite Strickler v. Greene; 116 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 Strickler v. Greene?

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 court held that Strickler's post-conviction materiality standard does not govern prosecutors' disclosure decisions before or during trial.

    United States v. Safavian · D.D.C. · filed

    Because the definition of “materiality” discussed in Strickler and other appellate cases is a standard articulated in the post-conviction context for appellate review, it is not the appropriate one for prosecutors to apply during the pretrial discovery phase. The only question before (and even during) trial is whether the evidence at issue may be “favorable to the accused”; if so, it must be disclosed without regard to whether the failure to disclose it likely would affect the outcome of the upcoming trial.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Criticized

  • The court criticized as unfair and irrational the differing merits review that results when Strickler makes procedural-default prejudice identical to an element of the defaulted claim.

    Tyler v. McCaughtry · E.D. Wis. · filed

    However, in cases such as Strickler, where prejudice is defined as being identical to one of elements of the defaulted claim, to assume that a claim is meritorious would be to assume prejudice. Thus, in such cases, courts do not assume that a claim is meritorious but rather examine the merits of the claim. Yet, it seems both unfair and irrational to determine prejudice differently — granting merits review to some litigants but not others — depending on the nature of the procedurally defaulted claim.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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