Wilson v. Seiter’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
1,379 federal appellate · 508 district · 143 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,159 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably Farmer v. Brennan (1994), Hudson v. McMillian (1992)
1,379 federal appellate · 508 district · 143 state decisions — followed in 25 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
reviewedWilson v. Seiter (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Graham v. Connor · Bell v. Wolfish · City of Canton v. Harris · Gregg v. Georgia
Cited together with Farmer v. Brennan · Estelle v. Gamble · Rhodes v. Chapman · Whitley v. Albers · Hudson v. McMillian
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 5,159 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.”
62 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Nothing so amorphous as 'overall conditions' can rise to the level of cruel and unusual punishment when no specific deprivation of a single human need exists.”
58 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.”
54 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.