Smith v. Bounds’s Empirical Analysis
813 F.2d 1299 · 1987
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently March 2011 · most notably Peterkin H v. Jeffes H (1988), Knop v. Johnson (1992)
18 federal appellate · 4 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
Relies on Link v. Wabash Railroad · O'Shea v. Littleton · Bounds v. Smith · Hutto v. Finney · Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the state law library system may have been in compliance with constitutional requirements.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Smith v. Bounds · Smith v. Bounds“[a] sound discretion hardly comprehends a pointless exaction of retribution. Dismissals for misconduct attributable to lawyers and in no way to their clients invariably penalize the innocent and may let the guilty off scott-free. Moreover, public confidence in the legal system is undermined when a litigant’s claim is dismissed due to the blameworthy actions of their counsel. The litigant does have recourse in such a case — a malpractice action — but that approach may not result in a hearing on the merits of the plain tiffs case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“The district court did not conclude, as the defendants contend, that prisoners have a constitutional right to access to an attorney. The district court ordered a remedy of attorney assistance because the state's program of law libraries had failed to meet the defendants' constitutional obligation of providing meaningful access to the courts.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Knop v. Johnson
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.