United States v. Cronic
E821190
United States v. Cronic is a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision that, alongside Strickland v. Washington, defines when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel is presumed to be violated without needing to show specific prejudice.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| United States v. Cronic canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9798933 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Cronic Context triple: [Strickland v. Washington, relatedCase, United States v. Cronic]
-
A.
Strickland v. Washington
Strickland v. Washington is a landmark 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the two-pronged test for determining when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel has been violated.
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B.
Lockett v. Ohio
Lockett v. Ohio is a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly expanded the range of mitigating factors a sentencer must be allowed to consider before imposing the death penalty.
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C.
United States v. Booker
United States v. Booker is a landmark 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rendered the Federal Sentencing Guidelines advisory rather than mandatory to preserve their constitutionality under the Sixth Amendment.
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D.
Rochin v. California
Rochin v. California is a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court case that held evidence obtained by methods that "shock the conscience," such as forcibly pumping a suspect’s stomach, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
E.
Escobedo v. Illinois
Escobedo v. Illinois is a landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that expanded the Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogations and helped lay the groundwork for the later Miranda warnings.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Cronic Target entity description: United States v. Cronic is a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision that, alongside Strickland v. Washington, defines when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel is presumed to be violated without needing to show specific prejudice.
-
A.
Strickland v. Washington
Strickland v. Washington is a landmark 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the two-pronged test for determining when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel has been violated.
-
B.
Lockett v. Ohio
Lockett v. Ohio is a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision that significantly expanded the range of mitigating factors a sentencer must be allowed to consider before imposing the death penalty.
-
C.
United States v. Booker
United States v. Booker is a landmark 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rendered the Federal Sentencing Guidelines advisory rather than mandatory to preserve their constitutionality under the Sixth Amendment.
-
D.
Rochin v. California
Rochin v. California is a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court case that held evidence obtained by methods that "shock the conscience," such as forcibly pumping a suspect’s stomach, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
-
E.
Escobedo v. Illinois
Escobedo v. Illinois is a landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case that expanded the Sixth Amendment right to counsel during police interrogations and helped lay the groundwork for the later Miranda warnings.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Sixth Amendment case
ⓘ
U.S. Supreme Court case ⓘ criminal procedure case ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
criminal law
ⓘ
criminal procedure ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1983-11-02 ⓘ |
| citation | 466 U.S. 648 ⓘ |
| citedWith | Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| clarified | When prejudice is presumed in ineffective assistance of counsel claims. ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvision | Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1984-05-14 ⓘ |
| defendantName | Harrison P. Cronic NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| distinguishedFrom | Strickland v. Washington NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 82-660 ⓘ |
| fullCaseName | United States v. Cronic NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| governmentParty | United States of America NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| holding |
The Court held that a presumption of prejudice arises only in limited circumstances where the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage, where counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing, or where the circumstances make it unlikely that any lawyer could provide effective assistance.
ⓘ
The Court rejected a per se rule that short preparation time or inexperience of counsel alone establishes a Sixth Amendment violation. ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Justice Byron R. White NERFINISHED ⓘ Justice Harry A. Blackmun NERFINISHED ⓘ Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ Justice Sandra Day O'Connor NERFINISHED ⓘ Justice Thurgood Marshall NERFINISHED ⓘ Justice William H. Rehnquist NERFINISHED ⓘ Justice William J. Brennan Jr. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United States federal courts NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| keyPhrase | entire failure to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing ⓘ |
| keyPrinciple | Not all attorney errors warrant a presumption of prejudice; most claims require showing actual prejudice under Strickland. ⓘ |
| legalIssue |
presumption of prejudice
ⓘ
right to effective assistance of counsel ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Justice John Paul Stevens NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| originatingCourt | United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| page | 648 ⓘ |
| petitioner | United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| precedentFor |
ineffective assistance of counsel doctrine
ⓘ
presumed prejudice in Sixth Amendment cases ⓘ |
| rearguedDate | 1984-01-09 ⓘ |
| relatedCase | Strickland v. Washington NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| respondent | Harrison P. Cronic NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| result | Judgment of the Court of Appeals vacated and case remanded. ⓘ |
| standardEstablished | Narrow categories in which ineffective assistance of counsel is presumed without a specific showing of prejudice. ⓘ |
| subjectMatter | federal mail fraud prosecution ⓘ |
| volume | 466 ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1984 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: United States v. Cronic Description of subject: United States v. Cronic is a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision that, alongside Strickland v. Washington, defines when a criminal defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel is presumed to be violated without needing to show specific prejudice.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.