Kelley v. Myler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

41 federal appellate · 8 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 103 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Probable cause does not depend on the witness turning out to be right; it's what the police know, not whether they know the truth that matters.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Muhammad v. Del Pearson · Woods v. City of Chicago

2. “[t]he inquiry is whether an officer has reasonable grounds on which to act, not whether it was reasonable to conduct further investigation.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Marshall Spiegel v. Joseph Cortese, Detective, and James Hennelly and Holly Zielke · Katherine Gardenhire and Walter Gardenhire v. Donald Schubert, in His Individual and Official Capacity as Chief of Police

3. “[a] police officer has probable cause to arrest when, at the moment the decision is made, the facts and circumstances within her knowledge and of which she has reasonably trustworthy information would warrant a prudent person in believing that the suspect had committed or was committing an offense. This flexible, commonsense approach does not require that the officer’s belief be correct or even more likely true than false, as long as it is reasonable.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Saffold v. City of Calumet Park