Smith v. Bounds’s Empirical Analysis
538 F.2d 541 · 1975
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 3 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 1993 · most notably Bounds v. Smith (1977), Gordon v. Leeke (1978)
19 federal appellate · 3 district ·
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
Relationships
Relies on Reed v. Reed · Ross v. Moffitt · Younger v. Gilmore · Gilmore v. Lynch · Eslinger v. Thomas
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In cases which have arisen since the pioneer authority, Gilmore v. Lynch (N.D.Cal.1970) 319 F.Supp. 105 , aff’d sub nom. Younger v. Gilmore (1971) 404 U.S. 15 , 92 S.Ct. 250 , 30 L.Ed.2d 142 it has been generally assumed that adequate legal research facilities and an acceptable legal assistance program are to be thought of as alternatives and not as supplements to each other in the discharge of the State’s obligation in this area. See Kirby v. Ciccone (8th Cir. 1974) 491 F.2d 1310, 1312 ; Noorlander v. Ciccone (8th Cir. 1973) 489 F.2d 642, 650-1 ; Johnson v. Anderson (D.Del.1974) 370 F.Supp. 1373, 1385 ; cf. Ross v. Moffitt (1974) 417 U.S. 600, 616-18 , 94 S.Ct. 2437 , 41 L.Ed.2d 341 . We agree and are of opinion that the District Court correctly ruled that the State is under no constitutional duty to offer the inmates of its penal institutions both adequate legal research facilities and an independent attorneys’ office, however helpful the dual service might be. 3”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“each library [would] make use of one or two inmates as typists to prepare court petitions and ... supervise the day-to-day use of the library. * * * Those inmates who work in the libraries ... [would] be trained to the best extent possible in researching legal questions and assisting inmates in their research. They [would] also be permitted to help illiterate and semi-literate inmates.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Knop v. Johnson“to furnish either legal research facilities to the inmates of its correctional system or an acceptable alternative therefor.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Russell v. Oliver
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.