Alston v. Read’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate · 5 state decisions

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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “For a constitutional right to be clearly established, “[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 , 107 S.Ct. 3034 , 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). It is not sufficient to allege the violation of “abstract rights.” Id. at 639 , 107 S.Ct. 3034 . Rather, the right the officials are alleged to have violated must be “ ‘clearly established’ in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense.” Id. at 640 , 107 S.Ct. 3034 ; see also Cousins v. Lockyer, 568 F.3d 1063, 1070 (9th Cir.2009) (concluding that while the plaintiff had the right to be free from wrongful incarceration, the relevant qualified immunity inquiry was whether the plaintiff had provided any evidence that a reasonable official in the defendant’s position would have known that by failing to monitor state appellate court decisions for changes to the law, he would be violating the plaintiffs constitutional rights).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 891 F. Supp. 2d 1149 - Ward v. Brown

2. “bears the burden of showing that the right at issue was clearly established.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Emmons v. City of Escondido

3. “and were not required to go in search of additional courthouse records”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Alston v. State