Trapnell v. Riggsby’s Empirical Analysis
622 F.2d 290 · 1980
Citation profile
21 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2022 · most notably Thornburgh v. Abbott (1989), Giano v. Senkowski (1995)
21 federal appellate · 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 Scheuer v. Rhodes · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Wolff v. McDonnell · Bell v. Wolfish · Grayned v. City of Rockford
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Rather than attempt to suppress expression per se, the regulation is an attempt to diminish the possibility that, when certain photos are in the possession of inmates, those photos will be the cause of violence between the inmates. We note that each of the photographs that Trapnell ordered from Gowland was selected from Gowland’s catalogues, which catalogues Trapnell was allowed to receive through the prison mail system. Finally, the regulation is sufficiently narrow in scope and is “no greater than is necessary or essential to the protection of the particular governmental interest involved.” Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. [396] at 413, 94 S.Ct. [1800] at 1811 [ 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974)]. Under these regulations prison officials are not entitled “to apply their own personal prejudices and opinions as standards for prisoner mail censorship.” Id. at 415, 94 S.Ct. at 1812 . Instead, these regulations are a narrowly drawn and carefully limited response to a valid security problem faced by officials. The distinction between photographs which have been released for commercial distribution and those photos which have not been so released is a reasonable attempt to exclude photographs of women with whom inmates have an emotional attachment. (Emphasis supplied).”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“are considered highly emotionally charged items.... If such photographs were viewed by other inmates, conflicts or assaults are likely to result ... Since this population is primarily long-term offenders with assaultive patterns of behavior and considered to have high propensity toward violence, regulations must be established in this area for the safekeeping of both staff and inmates.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“is not immune from liability for damages under § 1983 if he knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took within his sphere of official responsibility would violate the constitutional rights of the [plaintiffs] or if he took the action with the malicious intention to cause a deprivation of constitutional rights or other injury to the [plaintiffs].”
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.