Sowell v. Vose’s Empirical Analysis
941 F.2d 32 · 1991
Citation profile
18 federal appellate · 8 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Lewis Director Arizona Department of Corrections v. Casey (1996), Strickler v. Waters (1993)
18 federal appellate · 8 district · 6 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
Relies on Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Bounds v. Smith · Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc. · Sands II v. Lewis Adoc · Peterkin H v. Jeffes H
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“... where ‘the challenge is systemic, embracing the basic adequacy of materials and legal assistance made available to all or subgroups of the prison population ... [or where] the conditions challenged obviously go to the heart of any meaningful access to libraries, counsel, or courts,’ ... imposition of an ‘actual injury5 requirement would be superfluous. A prisoner need not show that the deprivations caused him an independent injury where the deprivation is so significant as to constitute an injury in and of itself.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'ancillary features' such as library schedules, the provision of notary services and the availability of supplies (such as papers, pens and pencils),”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“actual, meaningful impediment to [plaintiff's] participation in the [legal] process”
2 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.