Thornburgh v. Abbott’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
778 federal appellate · 217 district · 224 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,383 later decisions (29 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Lewis Director Arizona Department of Corrections v. Casey (1996), Payne v. Tennessee (1991)
778 federal appellate · 217 district · 224 state decisions — followed in 27 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 District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Bell v. Wolfish · Elrod v. Burns · Turner v. Safley · Procunier v. Martinez
Cited together with Turner v. Safley · Procunier v. Martinez · Bell v. Wolfish · Pell v. Procunier · O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz
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 2,383 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“when a prison regulation impinges on inmates' constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”
134 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage“Running a prison is an inordinately difficult undertaking that requires expertise, planning, and the commitment of resources, all of which are peculiarly within the province of the legislative and executive branches of government.”
14 later decisions 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.