Whirl v. Kern’s Empirical Analysis
407 F.2d 781 · 1968
Citation profile
167 federal appellate · 16 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 287 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970), Parratt v. Taylor (1981)
167 federal appellate · 16 district · 15 state decisions — followed in 10 states
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 United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs · Monroe v. Pape · Pierson v. Ray · Bolling v. Sharpe · Screws v. United States
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 287 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““At common law the police officer always had available to him the defense of good faith and probable cause, and this has been consistently read as meaning good faith and ‘reasonable belief’ in the validity of the arrest or search.” Id. at 1347 . “Therefore, to prevail the police officer need not allege and prove probable cause in the constitutional sense. * * * [W]e hold that it is a defense to allege and prove good faith and reasonable belief in the validity of the arrest and search and in the necessity for carrying out the arrest and search in the way the arrest was made and the search was conducted. We think, as a matter of constitutional law and as a matter of common sense, a law enforcement officer is entitled to this protection.” Id. at 1348 .”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a jailer's] duty to his prisoner is not breached until the expiration of a reasonable time for the proper ascertainment of the authority upon which his prisoner is detained.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other-person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.””
3 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.