Shannon v. Koehler’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

33 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 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 75 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Long before [the date of the incident], this court (among others) had announced that the use of force against a suspect who was not threatening and not resisting may be unlawful.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Burnikel v. Fong · Wilson v. Lamp

2. “[t]he dispositive question is whether the amount of force the officer used was objectively reasonable. See Graham v. Connor , 490 U.S. 386 , 396-97, 109 S.Ct. 1865 , 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). In turn, "[t]he reasonableness of a particular use of force depends on the circumstances of each case, including 'the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.' " Wertish v. Krueger , 433 F.3d 1062 , 1066 (8th Cir. 2006) (quoting Graham , 490 U.S. at 396 , 109 S.Ct. 1865 ).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wilson v. Lamp · Harris v. Parrish

3. “[F]orce is least justified against nonviolent misdemeanants who do not flee or actively resist arrest and pose little or no threat to the security of the officers or the public.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Burnikel v. Fong · Fischer v. Hoven