Smith v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
2 F.2d 715 · 1924
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 4 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 33 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 1971 · most notably Olmstead v. United States (1928), 45 Cal. 2d 755 - People v. Martin (1955)
10 federal appellate · 4 district · 15 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.
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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A search implies some exploratory investigation. It is not a search to observe that which is open and patent, in either sunlight or artificial light. Surely, under the circumstances, it was not an unreasonable search to turn a flashlight on an open automobile.””
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.