Rhodes v. Chapman’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
1,376 federal appellate · 523 district · 255 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,899 later decisions (38 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Farmer v. Brennan (1994), Hudson v. Palmer (1984)
1,376 federal appellate · 523 district · 255 state decisions — followed in 31 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Wolff v. McDonnell · Bell v. Wolfish · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia
Cited together with Estelle v. Gamble · Bell v. Wolfish · Wilson v. Seiter · Farmer v. Brennan · Whitley v. Albers
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 4,899 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities.”
276 later decisions quote this exact passage“the public attitude toward a given sanction.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[T]he problems of prisons in America are complex and intractable, and, more to the point, they are not readily susceptible of resolution by decree. Most require expertise, comprehensive planning, and the commitment of resources, all of which are peculiarly within the province of the legislative and executive branches of government. For all of those reasons, courts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform. Judicial recognition of that fact reflects no more than a healthy sense of realism.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.