United States v. Focarile’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
54 federal appellate · 9 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 111 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2011 · most notably United States v. Giordano (1974), United States v. Chavez (1974)
54 federal appellate · 9 district · 20 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.
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2510 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2516 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 28 U.S.C. § 510 · 47 U.S.C. § 605
Relies on Katz v. United States · Carroll v. United States · Aguilar v. Texas · Spinelli v. United States · Draper 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 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"Paragraph (4) defines `intercept' to include the aural acquisition of the contents of any wire or oral communication by any electronic, mechanical, or other device. Other forms of surveillance are not within the proposed legislation. See Lee v. United States, 274 U.S. 559 , 47 S.Ct. 746 , 71 L.Ed. 1202 (1927); Corngold v. United States, 367 F.2d 1 (9th 1966). An examination of telephone company records by law enforcement agents in the regular course of their duties would be lawful because it would not be an `interception.' ( United States v. Russo, 250 F.Supp. 55 (E.D.Pa.1966)). The proposed legislation is not designed to prevent the tracing of phone calls. The use of a `pen register,' for example, would be permissible. But see United States v. Dote, 371 F.2d 176 (7th 1966). The proposed legislation is intended to protect the privacy of the communication itself and not the means of communication. " (Emphasis added). S.Rep.No.1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. at 90 (1968), 1968 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News, p. 2178.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"As used in this chapter (4) `intercept' means the aural acquisition of the contents of any wire or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device."”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Knowing that only ‘innocent’ calls would be suppressed, the government could intercept every conversation during the entire period of a wiretap with nothing to lose by doing so since it would use at trial only those conversations which had definite incriminating value anyway, thereby completely ignoring the minimization mandate of Title III.””
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.