Wilkinson v. Ellis’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 10 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 54 later decisions — most recently July 2023 · most notably No. 90-6051 (1991), Gray III v. Bell (1983)
16 federal appellate · 10 district · 6 state decisions
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 28 U.S.C. § 2201 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Brady v. State of Maryland · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Monroe v. Pape
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 54 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Assuming, as we must at this juncture, that [the prosecutor] knew all he is alleged to have known with respect to patterns of police abuse, he nevertheless had no direct supervisory authority over the police. Because he had no such authority, a § 1983 suit based only on his alleged failure to supervise is untenable.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Hauptmann v. Wilentz“[0]nce the decision is made not to furnish evidence to the defense, no addi tional protectible prosecutorial discretion is involved in deciding to dispose of it, and ..., while deciding not to furnish the prosecution’s evidence to the defense may be an act of advocacy, throwing the evidence away is not such an act.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Ojnce the decision is made not to furnish evidence to the defense, no additional protectible prosecutorial discretion is involved in deciding to dispose of it, and ..., while deciding not to furnish the prosecution’s evidence to the defense may be an act of advocacy, throwing the evidence away is not such an act.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.