McCray v. Burrell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 federal appellate · 4 district · 2 state decisions

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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A look at the Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1972 and the Semi-annual Report of the Director for the first half of fiscal 1973, lend statistical evidence to our conviction that there is little hope of relief from the swelling ranks of petitioning prisoners. At the appellate level, nearly 31% of the prisoner appeals filed nationwide were filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in fiscal 1972. This percentage rose to 36.1% during the first half of 1973. More importantly, prisoner cases accounted for 38% of all cases filed with the Fourth Circuit in 1972, and for 45.3% for the first part of 1973. “Of greater moment for our purposes is the number of civil rights petitions filed by prisoners in the United States District Courts. In fiscal 1972, 252 civil rights petitions were filed by federal prisoners (an increase of 1,580% over 1961, and an increase of 17.8% over 1971), and 3,348 were filed by state prisoners (an increase of 1,435.8% over 1961, and an increase of 14.9% over 1971). During the first half of fiscal 1973, 155 civil rights actions were instituted by federal prisoners, and 1,891 were filed by state prisoners. “Although it cannot be denied that direct- federal judicial intervention has, in recent years, served to remedy the worst examples of retrogressive American penology (as in the infamous Tucker Farm of Arkansas, see Jackson v. Bishop, 404 F.2d 57”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Farrington v. State of North Carolina

2. “The physical aspects of the cells in the isolated cell area and the mental observation area (which are substantially the same) are primitive at best. However, it is significant that the plaintiff candidly admitted on several occasions he had requested to be placed in the I.C. area because it was more conducive to preparation of legal papers. While it is true that he was fully clothed on these latter visits to I.C., it does indicate that the conditions of the cells were not intolerable.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McCray v. Burrell

3. “It is important to bear in mind that the Maryland Correctional System, like many others, has been plagued by considerable prisoner unrest. While this Court is not absolving the prisons of all responsibility for this problem, it is clear that a prison correctional officer must be concerned with avoiding situations which could ignite a riot. This was the principal factor considered by the defendants in placing the plaintiff in an isolated cell.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. McCray v. Burrell