Bell v. Irwin’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 federal appellate · 1 district ·

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

1. “When material facts are in dispute, then the case must go to a jury, whether the argument is that the police acted unreasonably because they lacked probable cause, or that they acted unreasonably because they responded overzealously and with too little concern for safety. But when material facts (or enough of them to justify the conduct objectively) are undisputed, then there would be nothing for a jury to do except second-guess the officers, which Graham held must be prevented. Since Graham we have regularly treated the reasonableness of force as a legal issue, rather than an analog of civil negligence. See, e.g., Smith v. Ball State University, 295 F.3d 763, 770-71 (7th Cir.2002); Smith v. Chicago, 242 F.3d 737 , 743-44 (7th Cir.2001); Hebron v. Touhy, 18 F.3d 421 (7th Cir.1994); Titran v. Ackman, 893 F.2d 145 (7th Cir.1990).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 304 F. Supp. 2d 1083 - Lawrence v. Kenosha County

2. “particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Scott v. Edinburg

3. “To say that police officers have acted within the bounds that the Constitution sets is not necessarily to say that they have acted wisely.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Scott v. Edinburg