Jones v. Phyfer’s Empirical Analysis
761 F.2d 642 · 1985
Citation profile
32 federal appellate · 5 district · 7 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 66 later decisions — most recently January 2001 · most notably Nishiyama v. Dickson County (1987), Butera v. District of Columbia (2001)
32 federal appellate · 5 district · 7 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 Conley v. Gibson · Baker v. McCollan · Smith v. Wade · Martinez v. California · Bowers v. DeVito
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 66 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Although the decision to release Thomas [the paroled prisoner] from prison was action by the State, the action of Thomas five months later cannot be fairly characterized as state action. Regardless of whether, as a matter of state tort law, the parole board could be said either to have had a “duty” to avoid harm to his victim or have proximately caused her death, ... we hold that, taking these particular allegations as true, appellees did not “deprive” appellants’ decedent of life within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[Generally the due process clause of the Constitution does not protect a member of the public at large from the criminal acts of a third person, even if the state was remiss in allowing the third person to be in a position in which he might cause harm to a member of the public, at least in the absence of a special relationship between the victim and the criminal or between the victim and the state.”
2 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.