Case Citator › Drinkard v. Johnson

Drinkard v. Johnson

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

Overruled in part
Court
Fifth Circuit
Citation
97 F.3d 751
Decided
Confirmed treatments
4
Flagged citations read
67 of 67
Citing cases (total)
67
Treatment dates
1997–2000
Overruled in part
A reviewed court has overruled part of this case’s holding. Drinkard v. Johnson is overruled in part: all 67 flagged citations have been read, and four confirmed treatments are listed below. After Lindh v. Murphy, the Fifth Circuit held that Drinkard's certificate-of-appealability rule did not govern a habeas petition filed before AEDPA.
More on how this was screened

Other courts questioned or rejected distinct parts of Drinkard's AEDPA analysis; the listed opinions do not displace its separate ruling on the capital-sentencing instruction.

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.

67 later cases cite Drinkard v. Johnson; 67 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 Drinkard v. Johnson?

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

Overruled in part

  • The Fifth Circuit held that Lindh displaced Drinkard's rule requiring a certificate of appealability for a pending request in a habeas case filed before AEDPA; the earlier certificate of probable cause sufficed.

    Shute v. Texas · Fifth Circuit · filed

    As § 2253 is a part of chapter 153, Lindh effectively overrules Drinkard on this point. Because Shute filed his non-capital habeas petition well before April 24, 1996, none of the AEDPA's requirements apply to him. We granted Shute both a CPC and a COA. The CPC is sufficient to vest jurisdiction in this court.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Declined to follow

  • The Southern District of Ohio rejected Drinkard's reading of AEDPA's unreasonable-application standard and adopted a competing approach.

    Franklin v. Francis · S.D. Ohio · filed

    However, this Court is persuaded by the reasoning and decision of its sister court in Nevers v. Killinger, 990 F.Supp. 844 (E.D.Mich. 1997), which declined to follow the unworkable and unreasonable approach of the Fifth' and Ninth Circuits, as set forth in Drinkard v. Johnson, 97 F.3d 751, 768-69 (5th Cir.1996), and Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484, 1500 (9th Cir. 1997).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Ninth Circuit rejected Drinkard's division of AEDPA's two review clauses by question type, saying decisions that adopted that division were no longer good law.

    Tran v. Lindsey · Ninth Circuit · filed

    The approach creating such a division was endorsed by some decisions of this court and adopted by some of our sister circuits. See Baker v. City of Blaine, 205 F.3d 1138 (9th Cir.2000); Moore v. Calderon, 108 F.3d 261, 265 n. 3 (9th Cir.1997); Drinkard v. Johnson, 97 F.3d 751, 767-68 (5th Cir.1996); Neelley v. Nagle, 138 F.3d 917, 924 (11th Cir.1998). Those decisions are no longer good law.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Questioned

  • The Fifth Circuit questioned whether Lindh had displaced Drinkard's rule applying AEDPA to a pending capital habeas petition, and decided the appeal without resolving that issue.

    Rector v. Johnson · Fifth Circuit · filed

    It is unclear whether or not the reasoning in Lindh effectively overrules Drinkard (a capital case) and compels us to apply pre-AEDPA standards to Rector’s appeal.2 We need not decide this question, however, because its resolution is not necessary to the disposition of Rector’s appeal, for whether his claims are analyzed under AEDPA or pre-AEDPA standards, Rector is not entitled to federal habeas relief.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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