White v. Elrod’s Empirical Analysis
816 F.2d 1172 · 1987
Citation profile
19 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 35 later decisions — most recently February 2014 · most notably In re Vitreous Steel Products Co. (1990), Gammon v. GC Services Ltd. Partnership (1994)
19 federal appellate · 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 Wayte v. United States · Stephen L. Ustrak, Cross-Appellant v. James W. Fairman, Cross-Appellee · Jones v. City of Alton · Hameetman v. City of Chicago · 66 Ill. App. 3d 381 - Fox v. Illinois Civil Service Com.
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 35 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] law violator cannot buy immunity from prosecution by coupling his violation with advocacy and then complaining that his advocacy led the government to single him out to prosecute for the violation — even if his speculation about the government’s motive is true, (cite omitted.) The government is allowed to get a bigger bang for its buck by concentrating its limited resources on those who flaunt their offenses, since proceedings against them are apt to generate more publicity and therefore communicate a more effective deterrent than proceedings against the obscure and denying violator.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The idea is that the finding is not sufficiently reliable, without the opportunity for appellate review of it, to be made incontestable in a subsequent suit”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Cotton v. Heyman
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.