Hunter v. Bryant’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
1,436 federal appellate · 888 district · 334 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,279 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Pearson v. Callahan (2009), Scott v. Harris (2007)
1,436 federal appellate · 888 district · 334 state decisions — followed in 41 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedBryant v. United States Treasury Department, Secret Service (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 871 (Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000)
Relies on Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Malley v. Briggs
Cited together with Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton · Mitchell v. Forsyth · Malley v. Briggs · Graham v. Connor
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 5,279 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Immunity ordinarily should be decided by the court long before trial.”
221 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”
94 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“accommodation for reasonable error ... more important than when the specter of Presidential assassination is raised.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Berg v. Kelly · Wood v. Moss
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.