Harris v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
1,177 federal appellate · 99 district · 2,071 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,774 later decisions (37 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971), South Dakota v. Opperman (1976)
1,177 federal appellate · 99 district · 2,071 state decisions — followed in 48 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
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Ker v. State of California · Preston v. United States · Hester v. United States · United States v. Lee
Cited together with Coolidge v. New Hampshire · Chimel v. California · Terry v. Ohio · Katz v. United States · Chambers v. Maroney
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 3,774 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It has long been settled that objects falling in the plain view of an officer who has a right to be in the position to have that view are subject to seizure and may be introduced in evidence.”
123 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[at 236, 88 S.Ct. at 993] Mr. Justice Douglas' concurring opinion ( 390 U.S. at 236, 237 , 88 S.Ct. at 994) noted that: (1) the car was lawfully in police custody, and the police were responsible for protecting the car; (2) while engaged in the performance of their duty to protect the car, and not engaged in an inventory or other search of the car, they came across incriminating evidence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.