Hill v. California’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
346 federal appellate · 83 district · 429 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,266 later decisions (52 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Illinois v. Gates (1983), Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973)
346 federal appellate · 83 district · 429 state decisions — followed in 35 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
Relies on Brinegar v. United States · Chimel v. California · Boyd v. United States · MacKey v. United States · Williams v. United States
Cited together with Terry v. Ohio · Brinegar v. United States · Graham v. Connor · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Anderson v. Creighton
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 1,266 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[w]hen the police have probable cause to arrest one party, and when they reasonably mistake a second party for the first party, then the arrest of the second party is a valid arrest.”
53 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“prior association with [the arrested drug dealer], his age and physical description, his address, and the make of his car.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“corresponded with the general description by the robbery victims and the statements made by [the arrested informants].”
1 later decision 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.