Alvarez v. Montgomery County’s Empirical Analysis
147 F.3d 354 · 1998
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 3 district · 17 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 39 later decisions — most recently January 2025 · most notably Rogers v. Pendleton (2001), Robinson v. Com. (2007)
6 federal appellate · 3 district · 17 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Katz v. United States · Florida v. Bostick · United States v. Martinez-Fuerte · Florida v. Jimeno · Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Delgado
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 39 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“in light of the sign reading 'Party In Back' with an arrow pointing toward the backyard, it surely was reasonable for the officers to proceed there directly as part of their effort to speak with the party's host.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“consistently eschewed bright-line rules, instead emphasizing the fact-specific nature of the reasonableness inquiry.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[The agent was] clearly entitled to go onto defendant’s premises in order to question him concerning the abandoned vehicle near his property. Furthermore, we cannot say that [the agent] exceeded the scope of his legitimate purpose for being there by walking around to the back door when he was unable to get an answer at the front door. It follows that [the agent] got within smelling range of the truck in which the liquor was found without unjustifiably intruding into defendant’s fourth amendment zone of privacy.... However, [the agent] did not ‘discover’ the liquor until he actually saw it through the crack between the rear doors of the truck.... It was not possible for [the agent] to make this confirmatory observation without exceeding the original purpose of his intrusion, which had justified his presence on defendant’s property up to that point, and making a further intrusion into an area of protected privacy.”
1 later decision 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.