United States v. Knoll’s Empirical Analysis
16 F.3d 1313 · 1994
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 3 district · 2 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably United States v. Yousef (2003), United States of America v. Joseph N. Basinski (2000)
29 federal appellate · 3 district · 2 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 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (Comprehensive Thrift and Bank Fraud Prosecution and Taxpayer Recovery Act of 1990) · 18 U.S.C. § 152 · 18 U.S.C. § 2 · 18 U.S.C. § 3161 (§ 101 of the Speedy Trial Act of 1974) · 18 U.S.C. § 3282 · 18 U.S.C. § 3284
Relies on Glasser v. United States · Wong Sun v. United States · Katz v. United States · Coolidge v. New Hampshire · Rakas v. Illinois
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Fourth Amendment only protects against a search that intrudes upon an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy. See Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765, 771 , 103 S.Ct. 3319, 3324 , 77 L.Ed.2d 1003 (1983). Under Fourth Amendment law a container need not be locked or fastened shut for there to be a legitimate expectation of privacy in its contents, though those facts are emphasized when they exist. See, e.g., Smith v. Ohio, 494 U.S. 541, 541-42 , 110 S.Ct. 1288, 1289 , 108 L.Ed.2d 464 (1990) (brown paper bag is a closed container); United States v. Donnes, 947 F.2d 1430, 1435-36 (10th Cir.1991) (reasonable expectation of privacy in opaque camera lens case). The Supreme Court has rejected a constitutional distinction between “worthy” and “unworthy” containers and has noted that “the Fourth Amendment provides protection to the owner of every container that conceals its contents from plain view.” United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822-23 , 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2171-72 , 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982). The often-stated requirement that a container need only be “closed” reflects the standard that for there to be a reasonable expectation of privacy, the contents of a container should not be apparent without opening. So long as the opaque file folders were closed or were in closed boxes, and did not reveal their contents, then a reasonable expectation of privacy continued even after they were stolen from Knoll’s office.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Id. at 1316. 5 The government's case against Knoll was based in part on information obtained from files stolen from Knoll's law office. The files were purloined during a burglary orchestrated in June 1986 by Timothy Ernle, a then-incarcerated felon. Id. at 1317. Following the burglary, Ernle contacted Assistant United States Attorney (”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Gleave and Knoll went together to the Cayman Islands [in 1982] and there opened two bank accounts: a personal account in Gleave's name ... and a corporate account in the name of soon-to-be-formed [company] Atlantis International, [Ltd.].”
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.