United States v. Branson’s Empirical Analysis
21 F.3d 113 · 1994
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16 later decisions — most recently February 2013
6 federal appellate · 1 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. § 3731 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc. · Bumper v. North Carolina · Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc. · United States v. Nordic Village, Inc. · American Tobacco Co. v. Patterson
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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Because the owner or operator of commercial premises in a “closely regulated” industry has a reduced expectation of privacy, the warrant and probable-cause requirements, which fulfill the traditional Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness for a government search, have lessened application in this context.... [W]e conclude that, as in other situations of special need, where the privacy interests of the owner are weakened and the government interests in regulating particular businesses are concomitantly heightened, a warrantless inspection of commercial premises may well be reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. This warrantless inspection, however, even in the context of a pervasively regulated business, will be deemed to be reasonable only so long as three criteria are met. First, there must be a “substantial” government interest that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made.... Second, the warrantless inspections must be necessary to further the regulatory scheme.... Finally, the statute’s inspection program, in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application, must provide a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant. In other words, the regulatory statute must perform the two basic functions of a warrant: it must advise the owner of the commercial premises that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly defined scope, and it must limit the discretion of the inspecting officers.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent“(1) a “substantial” government interest exists “that informs the regulatory scheme pursuant to which the inspection is made”; (2) the inspection is “necessary to further the regulatory scheme”; and, (3) the statute’s inspection program provides a “constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant” in that it “advise[s] the owner of the commercial premises that the search is being made pursuant to the law and has a properly defined scope” and it “limit[s] the discretion of the inspecting officers.””
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.