Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
1,393 federal appellate · 398 district · 1,498 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,149 later decisions (103 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably Santosky v. Kramer (1982), Hudson v. Palmer (1984)
1,393 federal appellate · 398 district · 1,498 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedInmates of the Nebraska Penal & Correctional Complex v. Greenholtz (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Mathews v. Eldridge · Richardson v. Perales · Morrissey v. Brewer · Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.
Cited together with Wolff v. McDonnell · Hewitt v. Helms · Morrissey v. Brewer · Meachum v. Fano · Olim v. Wakinekona
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 5,149 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“There is no constitutional or inherent right of a convicted person to be conditionally released before the expiration of a valid sentence.”
168 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Rummel v. Estelle · Vitek v. Jones“[l]iberty from bodily restraint always has been recognized as the core of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause from arbitrary governmental action.”
106 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“entitled to some measure of constitutional protection.”
41 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.