Beard v. Banks’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
123 federal appellate · 198 district · 36 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 767 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), Safford Unified School District 1 v. Redding (2009)
123 federal appellate · 198 district · 36 state decisions — followed in 13 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
reviewedBanks v. Beard (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corporation · Railroad Commission v. Pullman Co. · Turner v. Safley · Griswold v. State of Connecticut
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 767 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[f]irst, is there a "`valid, rational connection' between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it"? Second, are there "alternative means of exercising the right that remain open to prison inmates"? Third, what "impact" will "accommodation of the asserted constitutional right . . . have on guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources generally"? And, fourth, are "ready alternatives" for furthering the governmental interest available? [ Ibid. (quoting Turner, supra, 482 U.S. at 89-91 , 107 S.Ct. at 2262 , 96 L.Ed. 2d at 79-80 ) (internal citations omitted).]”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“distinguish between evidence of disputed facts and disputed matters of professional judgment. In respect to the latter, our inferences must accord deference to the views of prison authorities. Unless a prisoner can point to sufficient evidence regarding such issues of judgment to allow him to prevail on the merits, he cannot prevail at the summary judgment stage.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“more than a formalistic logical connection between [the impoundments of Prison Legal News ] and a penological objective.”
4 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.