Williams v. Heard’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The actions of defendant in this case ... were not reasonable. The right of a prisoner not to be held after the prisoner has been no-billed by the grand jury and the grand jury has ordered that the sheriff release the prisoner, where there is no other authority under which the prisoner is being held, is a clearly established constitutional right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law. Furthermore, defendant knew or should have known that this was a constitutional right and that the conduct at issue in this case violated constitutional norms. Knowing of the constitutional rights at stake, defendant, as a jailor, should have established reasonable procedures to account for prisoners held at both the downtown jail and the detention facility in Humble. As previously stated these procedures should have included a system that would afford priority treatment to releasing papers at both facilities, a system for ensuring the release of prisoners pursuant to the releasing papers, and a reliable system for verifying the orders to release as well as the actual release. In light of the clearly established constitutional right at issue of which defendant should have been aware, defendant’s actions were unreasonable because he failed to establish reasonable procedures for the release of prisoners such as plaintiff.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williams v. Heard