Coleman v. Peyton’s Empirical Analysis
362 F.2d 905 · 1966
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 6 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 48 later decisions — most recently February 1986 · most notably Sostre v. McGinnis (1971), Landman v. Royster (1971)
26 federal appellate · 6 district · 2 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
Relies on Coleman v. Peyton · James G. McCloskey v. State of Maryland · Coleman v. Smyth · Coleman v. Smyth
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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right and its exercise are adequately secured in the future, we think, only if delivery to a prisoner of incoming matter from a court having jurisdiction to hear his complaints and the mailing of his communications to such a court are delayed no longer than the necessities of sorting require. Further delay for other purposes, such as censorship, seems both inappropriate and unnecessary. If a Virginia prisoner should attempt to use a Virginia court or one of the United States as a letter drop for the conduct of an unauthorized or an objectionable correspondence the court can be expected to report the matter promptly and to refuse to suffer such a perversion of its offices. Censoring takes time, and a letter at the bottom of a pile does not receive the immediate, or sometimes the prompt, attention of the censor. Precensorship sorting followed by the immediate dispatch of communications addressed to the courts is both becoming and essential to the avoidance of unnecessary delay. [Footnote omitted.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[A] right of access to the courts is one of the rights a prisoner clearly retains. It is a precious right, and its administratively unfettered exercise may be of incalculable importance in the protection of rights even more precious.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.