French v. Corrigan’s Empirical Analysis
432 F.2d 1211 · 1970
Citation profile
32 federal appellate · 2 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2018 · most notably Polk County v. Dodson (1981), McCord v. Bailey (1980)
32 federal appellate · 2 district ·
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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1985
Relies on Hoffman v. Halden · Mulligan v. Schlachter · American-Hawaiian Steamship Co. v. United States · 125 F. Supp. 380 - Morgan v. Sylvester · United States ex rel. Carmelo v. Burke
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The office of public defender is sui generis. Unlike other public offices, it is not established to serve the public generally. Such offices have been created in implementation of the obligations created by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, to the end that every person charged with crime shall have an opportunity to be represented by counsel and to receive a fair trial. Recipients of the services of a public defender’s office are only those indigents in whose aid a court or magistrate appoints a public defender to render legal advice and assistance. As noted, the relationship thus created is a strictly professional one. It is a personal relationship of trust and confidence governed by the canons of professional ethics under which the attorney owes an obligation of unswerving loyalty and devotion to the interests of his client. True, the Nevada statutes (fn. 1) create only the office of public defender. True, the courts normally appoint “the public defender” to represent a defendant. The public defender appoints deputies and assigns a case to a deputy. If the nomenclature “deputy” is conclusive, the public defender is responsible for the deputy’s malpractice. We think the name designation is not conclusive. The personal attorney-client relationship established between a deputy and a defendant is not one that the public defender can control. The canons of professional ethics require that the deputy be “his own man” irrespective of advice or ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“This action is a clear attempt, despite plaintiff's assertion to the contrary, to obtain a review and a retrial of the State Court proceedings. The fact that a defeated litigant is prepared to charge a 'conspiracy' recklessly or otherwise and recite in haec verba the language of the Civil Rights Act does not give a right of review in the Federal Courts. To uphold the claim here advanced upon such conclusory allegations 'would open the door wide to every aggrieved litigant in a state court proceedings, and set the federal courts up as an arbiter of the correctness of every state decision.' 63 "This case demonstrates forcibly the wisdom of the public policy which grants immunity to judicial and other officials for acts performed in the discharge of their duties. If in circumstances such as this defendants may be made to answer for their determinations, not only would the independence of the judiciary be undermined, but a ready means would be at hand to paralyze the entire judicial system.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“allegations as to the acts committed by defendants in pursuance of the alleged conspiracy.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Sparkman v. McFarlin
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.