Sandra Lee Becker, Etc., Richard Guy Steffel v. John R. Thompson, Etc.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

35 federal appellate · 2 district ·

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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Since, however, the majority has made such a broad pronouncement on the meaning of Younger albeit in a case where the facts did not justify so broad a decision, I cannot help but note that the conclusion reached seems, to my mind, entirely wrong. Attempting to hold that even when there is no state court prosecution pending, a litigant must show bad faith harassment to give federal jurisdiction in the case of facial invalidity of the statute involved, and regardless of the fact that First Amendment rights may indeed be chilled, represents more than the great deference we must and should show to our state court brethren. It represents the abdication of our duty as federal judges where called on to decide what is solely a federal question. Closing yet another federal door in the face of a litigant raising only federal questions is to my mind, federalism turned on its head.”-”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 351 F. Supp. 42 - Cine-Com Theatres Eastern States, Inc. v. Lordi

2. ““Stated another way, is the propriety of granting a declaratory judgment concerning threatened future criminal prosecution determined by the same test as the propriety of granting in-junctive relief, i. e., bad faith harassment? Younger v. Harris, supra. May we transpose to this case, where no state prosecution was pending, what was said about declaratory relief in Samuels v. Mackell, supra, where a state prosecution was pending: [T]he same equitable principles relevant to the propriety of an injunction must be taken into consideration by federal district courts in determining whether to issue a declaratory judgment, and * * * where an injunction would be impermissible under these principles, declaratory relief should ordinarily be denied as well. Id. 401 U.S. at 73, 91 S.Ct. at 768.” Op. cit. 459 F. 2d at p. 921-922.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Jones v. Wade

3. “in preprosecution cases there must be a showing of bad faith harassment for the granting of declaratory as well as injunctive relief.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Milner v. Burson