Wilkinson v. Austin’s Empirical Analysis
2005
Citation profile
280 federal appellate · 124 district · 224 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,343 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably District Attorney's Office for the Third Judicial District v. Osborne (2009), United States v. Grubbs (2006)
280 federal appellate · 124 district · 224 state decisions — followed in 31 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
reviewedAustin v. Wilkinson (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3626 (§ 20409 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Mathews v. Eldridge · Morrissey v. Brewer · Wolff v. McDonnell · Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill · Fuentes v. Shevin
Cited together with Sandin v. Conner · Mathews v. Eldridge · Wolff v. McDonnell · Hewitt v. Helms · Greenholtz v. Inmates of Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex
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 1,343 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirement would entail.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A liberty interest may arise from the Constitution itself, by reason of guarantees implicit in the word `liberty,' or it may arise from an expectation or interest created by state laws or policies.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.