Berry v. Baca’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

13 federal appellate · 10 district · 1 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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “(1) that he possessed a constitutional right of which he was deprived; (2) that the municipality had a policy; (3) that this policy amounts to deliberate indifference to the plaintiffs constitutional right; and (4) that the policy [was] the moving force behind the constitutional violation.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Jadwin v. County of Kern · Garlick v. County of Kern

2. “[P]laintiffs possessed a constitutional right to freedom from imprisonment a reasonable time after they were judicially determined to be innocent of the charges against them.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mortimer v. Baca · Murphy v. Hughson

3. “Here, in contrast to Brass, the plaintiffs do not limit their challenge to the County’s specific policies. Rather, as argued in their briefs to this Court, they challenge the policy “in toto ... that simply delays all releases until the system, in its sweet time, and with the resources it chooses ... is ready to make releases.” Stated another way, the plaintiffs in this case challenge the implementation of the County’s policies, rather than the specific policies themselves. They claim that the County’s unreasonably inefficient implementation of its administrative policies amounts to a policy of deliberate indifference to their constitutional rights. While on first glance this may appear a subtle difference, in fact there is a crucial distinction between the challenge to specific policies in Brass and the challenge to the implementation of the policy “in toto” in this case. It cannot be the case that, if the County’s system of administratively processing releases took several days or weeks to complete, its policy could not be challenged as one of “deliberate indifference” simply because each of the administrative procedures employed is theoretically reasonable. As a matter of law, the County’s system of administrative processing cannot be immune from allegations that, in practice, it amounts to a policy of deliberate indifference. Brass did not raise this type of challenge, because Brass focused his challenge upon the County’s release policies themselves. Tellingly, nowhere in”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Mortimer v. Baca