Archie v. City of Racine’s Empirical Analysis
847 F.2d 1211 · 1988
Citation profile
255 federal appellate · 9 district · 16 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 456 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2025 · most notably Joshua Deshaney, a Minor, by His Guardian Ad Litem, and Melody Deshaney,s v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, et al. (1989), Medina v. City & County Denver (1992)
255 federal appellate · 9 district · 16 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Anderson v. Creighton · Estelle v. Gamble · Gideon v. Wainwright
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 456 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A state ought to follow its law, but to treat a violation of state law as a violation of the Constitution is to make the federal government the enforcer of state law. State rather than federal courts are the appropriate institutions to enforce state rules.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“An act is reckless when it reflects a wanton or obdurate disregard or complete indifference to risk, for example 'when the actor does not care whether the other person lives or dies, despite knowing that there is a significant risk of death' or grievous bodily injury.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Once state law defines the substance [of the property right], constitutional law establishes the minimum procedures. ... [But] violation of state law is not itself the violation of the Constitution.”
7 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.