Spain v. Procunier’s Empirical Analysis
600 F.2d 189 · 1979
Citation profile
136 federal appellate · 30 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 282 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2023 · most notably Farmer v. Brennan (1994), Wilson v. Seiter (1991)
136 federal appellate · 30 district · 6 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 · Bell v. Wolfish · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Meachum v. Fano
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 282 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he full protections of the eighth amendment most certainly remain in force [in prison]. The whole point of the amendment is to protect persons convicted of crimes.... Mechanical deference to the findings of state prison officials in the context of the eighth amendment would reduce that provision to a nullity in precisely the context where it is most necessary.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“some form of regular outdoor exercise is extremely important to the psychological and physical well being of the inmates.”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Rodgers v. Jabe · Shorter v. Baca“[U]se of the substance in small amounts may be a necessary prison technique if a prisoner refuses after adequate warning to move from a cell or upon other provocation presenting a reasonable possibility that slight force will be required____ The infliction of pain and the danger of serious bodily harm may be necessary if there is a threat of an equal or greater harm to others ...”
6 later decisions 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.