Johnson v. Perry’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 1 state decisions

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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]o the extent that Johnson's First Amendment claim focuses on his exclusion from the audience at Capital Prep basketball games, however, it stands on a different footing, because for such games the school invites the attendance of members of the public ... [and] courts, libraries, and hospitals, unlike schools, do not normally stage events at which the audience is encouraged not to be quiet but instead to engage in raucous and sustained noise. Peace, quiet, and tranquility are not characteristics of, or normally associated with, sports contests. ... While the invitation to parents and other spectators to attend basketball games would not constitute an invitation to anyone to disrupt the game or intermissions with speeches about his or her views on school policy generally, or political issues, or other subjects not related to the sporting event, persons attending the game are expected to engage in expressive activity, chanting and cheering for whichever team they favor. Indeed, they are encouraged to do so; many schools even have at the games groups of students whose function is to lead the audience in boisterous expressions of encouragement and partisanship.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Coffelt v. Omaha Sch. Dist. · 342 F. Supp. 3d 275 - Hansen v. Town of Smithtown

2. “A court required to rule upon the qualified immunity issue must consider, then, this threshold question: Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right? This must be the initial inquiry.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Boyler v. City of Lackawanna

3. “The second prong of the standard means that officials are 'entitled to qualified immunity [when] their decision was reasonable, even if mistaken,' which 'protect[s] all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Boyler v. City of Lackawanna