Kalina v. Fletcher’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
374 federal appellate · 179 district · 108 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,297 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Miller v. Gammie (2003), City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd. (1999)
374 federal appellate · 179 district · 108 state decisions — followed in 18 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
reviewedFletcher v. Kalina (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mitchell v. Forsyth · Coolidge v. New Hampshire · Malley v. Briggs · Imbler v. Pachtman · Gerstein v. Pugh
Cited together with Imbler v. Pachtman · Buckley v. Fitzsimmons · Burns v. Reed · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Malley v. Briggs
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 1,297 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Testifying about facts is the function of the witness, not of the lawyer. No matter how brief or succinct it may be, the evidentiary component of an application for an arrest warrant is a distinct and essential predicate for a finding of probable cause. Even when the person who makes the constitutionally required “Oath or affirmation” is a lawyer, the only function that she performs in giving sworn testimony is that of a witness.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the nature of the function performed, not the identity of the actor who performed it.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“When a prosecutor performs the investigative functions normally performed by a detective or police officer, it is neither appropriate nor justifiable that, for the same act, immunity should protect the one and not the other.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Flowers v. Seki · Calabrese v. Foxx
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.