United States v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 federal appellate · 9 district · 2 state decisions

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 79 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Under the ‘law of the case’ doctrine, a court is ordinarily precluded from reexamining an issue previously decided by the same court, or a higher court, in the same case.” Richardson v. United States, 841 F.2d 993, 996 (9th Cir.1988) (citations omitted). The doctrine is “a judicial invention designed to aid in the efficient operation of court affairs,” United States v. Lummi Indian Tribe, 235 F.3d 443, 452 (9th Cir.2000) (quoting Milgard Tempering, Inc. v. Selas Corp. of Am., 902 F.2d 703, 715 (9th Cir.1990)), and is “founded upon the sound public policy that litigation must come to an end,” Old Person v. Brown, 312 F.3d 1036, 1039 (9th Cir.2002), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1016 , 124 S.Ct. 566 , 157 L.Ed.2d 429 (2003). Further, the doctrine serves to advance the “principle that in order to maintain consistency during the course of a single lawsuit, reconsideration of legal questions previously decided should be avoided.” United States v. Houser, 804 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir.1986) (citation omitted). Notably, “[ijssues that a district court determines during pretrial motions become law of the case.” United States v. Phillips, 367 F.3d 846, 856 (9th Cir.2004) (citation omitted) cert. denied, 543 U.S. 980 , 125 S.Ct. 479 , 160 L.Ed.2d 358 (2004). The law of the case doctrine is “not an inexorable command,” Hanna Boys Center v. Miller, 853 F.2d 682, 686 (9th Cir.1988) (citation omitted), nor is it “a limit to [a court’s] power.” Houser, 804 F.2d at 567-568 . Rather, “[application of ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Norita

2. “[Under Belton], [a] valid search does not have to be “immediately upon the heels of an arrest,” but can be “well after” the arrest as long as there has been a continuous sequence of events leading up to the search.... Some courts consider whether the “arresting officers conducted the search as soon as it was practical to do so,” or if there were any intervening acts occurring before the search, unrelated to the search.... As another circuit court has ... observed, “[t]he relevant distinction turns not upon the moment of the arrest versus the moment of the search but upon whether the arrest and search are so separated in time or by intervening events that the latter cannot be said to have been incident to the former.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. People v. Malloy

3. “The doctrine [of the law of the case] is a judicial invention designed to aid in the efficient operation of court affairs, and is founded upon the sound public policy that litigation must come to an end. Further, the doctrine serves to advance the principle that in order to maintain consistency during the course of a single lawsuit, reconsideration of legal questions previously decided should be avoided.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 383 F. Supp. 2d 1199 - Ischay v. Barnhart