171 W. Va. 245 - Cooper v. Gwinn’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
119 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 121 later decisions — most recently December 2020 · most notably 171 W. Va. 445 - Nelson v. West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Board (1983), 172 W. Va. 312 - State Ex Rel. Simpkins v. Harvey (1983)
119 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1343 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Wolff v. McDonnell · Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Meachum v. Fano · Pell v. Procunier · Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union, Inc.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 121 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Before this Court may properly issue a writ of mandamus three elements must coexist: (1) the existence of a clear right in the petitioner to the relief sought; (2) the existence of a legal duty on the part of the respondent to do the thing the petitioner seeks to compel; and (3) the absence of another adequate remedy at law.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage“[T]he Commissioner of Corrections has the duty to faithfully administer the State Prison for Women “to the end that persons committed to institutions of the State for crime and delinquency shall be afforded individual and group treatment to reestablish their ability to [live] peaceably_” W.Va.Code § 62-13-1. We realize that prison officials are hampered in their efforts by a lack of funds. However, the lack of funds is not a valid excuse for denying inmates, and society as a whole, the constitutional right to the benefit of legislative enactments which clearly establish the duty of the Department of Corrections to rehabilitate individuals charged to its care, and the concommitant [sic] right of those individuals to demand the benefit of those laws.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“As an officer of the Department of Corrections, the Commissioner is bound by the statutes creating that agency.... Furthermore, as an executive officer the Commissioner has the constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” W.Va.Const. art. VII, § 5. Our Constitution does not permit executive officers to pick and choose the laws they will or will not execute, for if such were the case, the executive department, could, either by commission or omission, [sic] model a system of law different from that specified by the people acting through the Legislature. So long as a legislative enactment as law exists, the executive department has the constitutional duty to attend to its faithful execution. 171 W.Va. at 253 , 298 S.E.2d at 789 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.