Dickerson v. Mcclellan’s Empirical Analysis
101 F.3d 1151 · 1996
Citation profile
123 federal appellate · 9 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 363 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably Ruth Ann Williams, Personal Representative of the Estate of Anthony Wade, Deceased v. T.N. Mehra Dr. Cabrera Dr. Rodriguez, John Jabe, Warden Gerald Hofbauer, Deputy Warden John Fisher, Security Guard Jane Doe, Nurse (1999), Bloch v. Ribar (1998)
123 federal appellate · 9 district · 3 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 Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Graham v. Connor · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Tennessee v. Garner
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 363 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“First, we determine whether a constitutional violation occurred; second, we determine whether the right that was violated was a clearly established right of which a reasonable person would have known; finally, we determine whether the plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts, and supported the allegations by sufficient evidence, to indicate that what the official allegedly did was objectively unreasonable in light of the clearly established constitutional rights.”
42 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The time-frame is a crucial aspect of excessive force cases. Other than random attacks, all such cases begin with the decision of a police officer to do something, to help, to arrest, to inquire. If the officer had decided to do nothing, then no force would have been used. In this sense, the police officer always causes the trouble. But it is trouble which the police officer is sworn to cause, which society pays him to cause and which, if kept within constitutional limits, society praises the officer for causing.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“whether, based on the applicable law, a constitutional violation occurred.”
5 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.