United States v. Sparks’s Empirical Analysis
291 F.3d 683 · 2002
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 31 later decisions — most recently January 2021 · most notably United States v. McGehee (2012), United States v. Biglow (2009)
11 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 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 · 18 U.S.C. § 924 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 28 U.S.C. § 1291
Relies on Illinois v. Gates · United States v. Leon · Ornelas v. United States · Beck v. State of Ohio · Sibron v. State of New York Peters
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 31 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]f an officer has lawfully observed an object of incriminating character in plain view in a vehicle, that observation, either alone or in combination with additional facts, has been held sufficient to allow the officer to conduct a probable cause search of the vehicle.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“incriminating character was immediately apparent”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Vassar v. State
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.