Burt v. Carlson’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
2 district ·
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 922 (Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act) · 28 U.S.C. § 636
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Scheuer v. Rhodes · Wolff v. McDonnell · Procunier v. Martinez · Tw Electrical Service Inc Nn v. Pacific Electrical Contractors Association
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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If the law at [the time of the incident] was not clearly established that the officials had no right to open special mail adequately identified as such despite deviation from the formula mark specified in Section 540.18(a), an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he be fairly said to 'know' that the law forbade such conduct. There are no reported cases that resolve this issue, and the position of the [defendants] ... is not so obviously contrary to the law as set forth in Wolff and later cases as to necessarily have been recognized as such.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lavado v. Keohane“Special Mail--Open only in the presence of the inmate,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lavado v. Keohane
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.