Kerr v. Farrey’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

38 federal appellate · 7 district · 7 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 88 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “'first, has the state acted; second, does the action amount to coercion; and third, is the object of the coercion religious or secular'”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Brown v. Collier · In re the Personal Restraint of Garcia

2. “1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings. 8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us, and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of those steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re the Personal Restraint of Garcia · In Re Garcia

3. “Although it has been clear for many years that the state may not coerce people to participate in religious programs, see [West Virginia State Board of Education v.] Barnette [ 319 U.S. 624 , 63 S.Ct. 1178 , 87 L.Ed. 1628 ] (1943), Torcaso [v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 , 81 S.Ct. 1680 , 6 L.Ed.2d 982 ] (1961), and Engel [v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 , 82 S.Ct. 1261 , 8 L.Ed.2d 601 ] (1962), the particular application of this principle to prisons has arisen only recently in the courts. See Matter of David Griffin, [v. Coughlin, 88 N.Y.2d 674 , 649 N.Y.S.2d 903 , 673 N.E.2d 98 (1996)] Warner [v. Orange County Department of Probation, 870 F.Supp. 69 (1994)], and O’Connor [v. State of California, 855 F.Supp. 303 (1994)], supra. One district court, considering a similar case against officials regarding the operation of an alcohol rehabilitation program at a correctional facility, found that a reasonable official might have concluded that the program satisfied the Lemon [v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 , 91 S.Ct. 2105 , 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971)], test, and thus concluded the qualified immunity was appropriate. Sca rpino v. Grosshiem, 852 F.Supp. 798 (S.D.Iowa 1994). The district judge here as well concluded that the program survived scrutiny under Lemon. While we conclude that the facts on the summary judgment record do not support that conclusion, under Anderson [v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635 , 107 S.Ct. 3034 , 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)], we cannot say that a reasonable prison official should have known th”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Kerr v. Puckett