Maclin v. Freake’s Empirical Analysis
650 F.2d 885 · 1981
Citation profile
161 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 263 later decisions — most recently August 2022 · most notably Tabron v. Grace (1993), Lewis v. Faulkner (1982)
161 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 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
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1915
Relies on Estelle v. Gamble · Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody · Harris v. Oklahoma · Dennis v. California · Simpson v. United States
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 263 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“denial of counsel will not be overturned unless it would result in fundamental unfairness impinging on due process rights.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“court may request an attorney to represent any such person unable to employ counsel.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[fjoremost among the “certain factors” that an appointing court must consider is an analysis of the merits of the indigent litigant’s claim from both a factual and legal standpoint. Maclin [v. Freake] makes clear that a court need not appoint counsel when it considers the indigent’s chances of success to be extremely slim____ When justifying a decision to appoint, a district court must apply the Maclin standards to the facts of each case and if counsel is both warranted and available, the court should request representation____ As noted, of primary importance in an indigent’s request for counsel is an evaluation of the factual and legal merits of the claim and its chances for success.”
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.