Edwards v. Balisok’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
448 federal appellate · 123 district · 63 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,318 later decisions (16 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Spencer v. Kemna (1998), Wilkinson Director Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction et al. v. Dotson et al. (2005)
448 federal appellate · 123 district · 63 state decisions — followed in 12 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 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1292 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Wolff v. McDonnell · Heck v. Humphrey · Arizona v. Fulminante · Preiser v. Rodriguez · Lewis Director Arizona Department of Corrections v. Casey
Cited together with Heck v. Humphrey · Preiser v. Rodriguez · Sandin v. Conner · Wolff v. McDonnell · Wilkinson Director Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction et al. v. Dotson et al.
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 2,318 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence ... unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated.”
97 later decisions quote this exact passage“necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence,”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“I agree that Balisok's claim is not cognizable ... to the extent that it is `based on allegations of deceit and bias on the part of the decisionmaker,' ... [and] `necessarily impl[ies] the invalidity of the punishment imposed.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.