Case Citator › Harrington v. Richter

Harrington v. Richter

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
562 U.S. 86
Decided
Confirmed treatments
1
Flagged citations read
309 of 309
Citing cases (total)
13,156
Treatment dates
2018
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. Harrington v. Richter is limited as described in the Supreme Court's later decision in Wilson v. Sellers. Wilson held that federal habeas courts ordinarily look through an unexplained state court decision to the last reasoned decision rather than hypothesize reasons under Richter.
More on how this was screened

All 309 flagged citations have been read; the confirmed treatment is listed below.

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.

13,156 later cases cite Harrington v. Richter; 309 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 Harrington v. Richter?

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

  • Declined to extend Richter’s hypothetical-reasons framework to unexplained higher state-court decisions when a lower state court supplied reasons, requiring a rebuttable presumption that the higher court adopted those reasons.

    Wilson v. Sellers · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    We hold that the federal court should “look through” the unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that does provide a relevant rationale. It should then presume that the unexplained decision adopted the same reasoning. ... Had we intended Richter’s “could have supported” framework to apply even where there is a reasoned decision by a lower state court, our opinion in Premo would have looked very different.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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