Costello v. Wainwright’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 9 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 82 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2020 · most notably Rhodes v. Chapman (1981), Spain v. Procunier (1979)
19 federal appellate · 9 district · 5 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedCostello v. Wainwright (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 28 U.S.C. § 2281
Relies on Baxter v. Palmigiano · Moody v. Flowers · Morales v. Turman · Costello v. Wainwright
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 82 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The applicability of § 2281 as written turns on whether a state statute is alleged to be unconstitutional, not on whether an equitable remedy for unconstitutional state administrative behavior ultimately impinges on duties imposed under concededly constitutional state statutes.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“On its face, the complaint that initiated this case involved no challenge to state statutes or regulations. There was thus no reason at the beginning of this litigation to suspect that a three-judge court should hear the case[,]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Wyatt v. Ireland“[t]he possible temporary suspension of an otherwise valid state statute to effectuate federally mandated relief as equivalent to finding that statute unconstitutional.”
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.