Cooper v. Pate’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

47 federal appellate · 7 district · 3 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 88 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “in part a recognition that discrimination in treatment of adherents of different faiths could be justified, if at all, only by the clearest and most palpable proof that the discriminatory practice is a necessity.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Chapman v. Pickett · 339 F. Supp. 1183 - Pitts v. Knowles

2. ““The district court found that plaintiff had not shown that these publications were basic to his belief or understanding of religion and had not sustained his burden of showing that the censorship was an abuse of discretion. The court dismissed the complaint on this point, and plaintiff appealed. “This was not the point given principal attention on the trial, and the record is not as clear as it might be. Apparently some of these publications carry articles by Elijah Muhammad and some relate otherwise to matters of faith. Viewed as ordinary reading matter, with only slight relevance to religion, it would be most difficult to establish that exclusion of any such material from a prison is unlawful. Considered as religious material, one question would be whether material of the same degree of religious relevance is permitted prisoners of other faiths. And the extent or tone with which the race doctrine of this particular faith is emphasized would, we think, be a legitimate consideration. “On the record before us, we cannot say that the finding of the district court was clearly erroneous.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 327 F. Supp. 821 - Rowland v. Sigler · Sutton

3. “It is clear that prison authorities must not punish a prisoner nor discriminate against him on account of his religious faith. But although a prisoner retains his complete freedom of religious belief, his conviction and sentence have subjected him to some curtailment of his freedom to exercise his beliefs. Courts will closely scrutinize the reasonableness of any restriction imposed on a prisoner’s activity in the exercise of his religion, and specially so where the adherents of one faith are more heavily restricted than the adherents of another.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Chapman v. Pickett · 22 F. Supp. 2d 1097 - Sutton v. Stewart