Davidson v. Scully’s Empirical Analysis
694 F.2d 50 · 1982
Citation profile
16 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently March 2010 · most notably Davis v. Goord (2003), Washington v. James (1986)
16 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 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 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Wolff v. McDonnell · Bell v. Wolfish · Bounds v. Smith
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[there is] no justification whatsoever for opening or reading correspondence addressed to the courts.... The content of this outgoing mail cannot, except on the most speculative theory, damage the security interests of jail administration. [Citations omitted]. As a general proposition, it must be assumed that mail addressed to governmental offices ... containing contraband or information about illegal activities will be treated by the recipients in a manner that cannot cause harm.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the prison regulations are irrational as applied to the correspondence here in question and [that] the authority of Sostre in respect to outgoing mail has been eroded.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Davidson v. Scully“justification for the restrictive practices challenged here.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Davidson v. Scully
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.