Brinegar v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
338 U.S. 160 · 1949
Citation profile
4,532 federal appellate · 599 district · 5,415 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12,632 later decisions (228 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Jackson v. Virginia (1979), Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera (1966)
4,532 federal appellate · 599 district · 5,415 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedBrinegar v. United States (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Carroll v. United States · Johnson v. United States · McDonald v. United States · Michelson v. United States
Cited together with Carroll v. United States · Draper v. United States · United States v. Rabinowitz · Johnson v. United States · United States v. Di Re
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 12,632 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.”
678 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“These [Fourth Amendment rights], I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government.”
39 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“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.”
35 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.