Helling v. McKinney’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
569 federal appellate · 286 district · 133 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,390 later decisions (19 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Farmer v. Brennan (1994), Erickson v. Pardus (2007)
569 federal appellate · 286 district · 133 state decisions — followed in 24 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
reviewedMcKinney v. Anderson (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Gregg v. Georgia · Joshua Deshaney, a Minor, by His Guardian Ad Litem, and Melody Deshaney,s v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, et al. · Wilson v. Seiter · Rhodes v. Chapman
Cited together with Farmer v. Brennan · Estelle v. Gamble · Wilson v. Seiter · Rhodes v. Chapman · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.
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 2,390 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It also requires a court to assess whether society considers the risk that the prisoner complains of to be so grave that it violates contemporary standards of decency to expose anyone unwillingly to such a risk. In other words, the prisoner must show that the risk of which he complains is not one that today’s society chooses to tolerate.”
31 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Holland v. Hanks · Hagen v. Dw Tate“' sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,' and gives rise to 'sufficiently imminent dangers.'”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“pose[s] an unreasonable risk of serious damage to his future health”
20 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.