Easterling v. Thurmer’s Empirical Analysis

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

1. “Prisoners retain a limited constitutional right to intimate association, established by the Supreme Court in [ Turner ], and confirmed in [ Overton ]. Turner holds that limits on prisoners' rights are valid if "reasonably related to legitimate penological interests." 482 U.S. at 89 , 107 S.Ct. 2254 . Overton suggests that limits on family visits with a prisoner may violate that rule if "permanent or for a [long] period" or if "applied in an arbitrary manner." 539 U.S. at 137 , 123 S.Ct. 2162 . We therefore have said, albeit in a nonprecedential decision, that a prisoner-even a sex offender-who alleges that a permanent ban on visits with his minor children has no legitimate justification states a valid constitutional claim. See Harris v. Donahue , 175 Fed.Appx. 746 , 748 (7th Cir. 2006) (unpublished). Today, we confirm, this time in a published opinion, that prison officials may violate the Constitution by permanently or arbitrarily denying an inmate visits with family members in disregard of the factors described in Turner and Overton .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Flynn v. Burns