Robinette v. Barnes’s Empirical Analysis
854 F.2d 909 · 1988
Citation profile
42 federal appellate · 4 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 102 later decisions — most recently March 2024 · most notably Richard Leo Deorle v. Greg Rutherford Mick Grey County of Butte (2001), Smith v. City of Hemet (2005)
42 federal appellate · 4 district · 9 state decisions
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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Tennessee v. Garner · United States v. Place · Brandon v. Holt · Sullivan v. United States · Jim McNeff, Inc. v. Todd
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 102 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“substantial risk of causing ... serious bodily injury”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““... that the circumstances warranted the use of deadly force. The facts indicate that Barnes had probable cause to believe that Briggs, a suspected felon hidden inside a darkened building in the middle of the night, threatened his safety and the safety of the other officers present. As the district court succinctly put it: ‘a reasonably competent officer would believe that a nighttime burglary suspect, who, the officers had good reason to believe, knew the building was surrounded, who had been warned ... that a dog would be used, and who gave every indication of unwillingness to surrender, posed a threat to the safety of the officers’.... [T]his is a case where an officer was forced to explore an enclosed unfamiliar area in which he knew a man was hiding. Under the totality of the circumstances, Barnes was justified in using whatever force was necessary, even deadly force, to protect himself and the other officers to apprehend the suspect.’ ””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Although we cannot ignore the fact that, in this case, the use of a police dog did result in a person's death, we also cannot ignore the evidence in the record which indicates that this tragic event was an extreme aberration from the outcome intended or expected.”
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.