Gabel v. Lynaugh’s Empirical Analysis
835 F.2d 124 · 1988
Citation profile
20 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 42 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2019 · most notably Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey (1998), Stone v. Harry (2004)
20 federal appellate · 3 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 28 U.S.C. § 1915
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 42 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“About one appeal in every six which came to our docket (17.3%) the last four months was a state prisoner’s pro se civil rights case. A high percentage of these are meritless, and many are transparently frivolous. So far in the current year (July 1-October 31, 1987), for example, the percentage of such appeals in which reversal occurred was 5.08. Partial reversal occurred in another 2.54%, for a total of 7.62% in which any relief was granted. The comparable figure for all appeals was almost twice as large, 14.3%. Over 92% were either dismissed or affirmed in full. For the same period § 1983 prisoner appeals prosecuted without counsel were our largest single category of cases which survived long enough to be briefed and enter our screening process so as to require full panel consideration. The number of these stands at almost 22%, with the next largest category—diversity cases—coming in at 16%, federal question appeals at 14.5%, and both general civil rights cases and criminal appeals coming in at something over 11% each. Such figures suggest that pro se civil rights litigation has become a recreational activity for state prisoners in our Circuit and that such action as we commence today in long overdue. We give notice that future frivolous or malicious appeals will call forth like sanctions. ( 835 F.2d at 125, n. 1 ) (emphasis added).”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Roller v. Gunn · Humphrey v. Bowles“the trial court cannot have erred as to matters which were not presented to it.”
1 later decision 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.