Smith v. Sullivan’s Empirical Analysis
553 F.2d 373 · 1977
Citation profile
32 federal appellate · 3 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 76 later decisions — most recently January 2020 · most notably Ruiz v. Estelle (1982), Newman v. Alabama (1977)
32 federal appellate · 3 district · 3 state decisions
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.
Relationships
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Wolff v. McDonnell · Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education · Kelley v. Southern Pacific Co. · Gates v. Collier
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 76 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A well-balanced meal, containing sufficient nutritional value to preserve health, is all that is required.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Each factor separately, i.e., overcrowding dormitory barracks, lack of classification according to severity of offense, untrained inmates with weapons, lack of supervision by civilian guards, absence of a procedure for confiscation of weapons, may not rise to constitutional dimensions; however, the effect of the totality of these circumstances is the infliction of punishment on inmates violative of the Eighth Amendment, as determined by the trial court.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. McMurry v. Phelps“Testimony at trial indicated instances in which persons with contagious or communicable diseases, such as scabies or gonorrhea, were incarcerated and left, in the midst of other inmates, without medical attention for a month or more. Obviously, allowing such conditions to exist would violate the required standard of adequate medical services.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.