Procunier v. Navarette’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
744 federal appellate · 274 district · 152 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,179 later decisions (96 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York (1978), Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982)
744 federal appellate · 274 district · 152 state decisions — followed in 30 states
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
reviewedApolinar Navarette, Jr., AKA Paul Medel Navarette v. Jiro J. Enomoto (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Scheuer v. Rhodes · Imbler v. Pachtman · Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory · Pierson v. Ray · Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation
Cited together with Wood v. Strickland · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Pierson v. Ray · Butz v. Economou
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 2,179 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the constitutional right allegedly infringed by them was clearly established at the time of their challenged conduct, if they knew or should have known of that right, and if they knew or should have known that their conduct violated the constitutional norm.”
87 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[t]his immunity is defeated if the official[s] took the complained-of action[s] 'with the malicious intention to cause a deprivation of rights,' or the official[s] violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights 'of which a reasonable person would have known.'”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.