Weeks v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
232 U.S. 383 · 1914
Citation profile
2,085 federal appellate · 534 district · 2,530 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,633 later decisions (466 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Terry v. Ohio (1968), Illinois v. Gates (1983)
2,085 federal appellate · 534 district · 2,530 state decisions — followed in 50 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
Relies on Boyd v. United States · Edwin Hale v. William Henkel · Bram v. United States · Holt v. United States
Cited together with Carroll v. United States · Mapp v. Ohio · Agnello v. United States · United States v. Rabinowitz · Boyd v. United States
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 6,633 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.””
65 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“right on the part of the Government, always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when legally arrested.”
49 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land.”
32 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.