United States v. Matlock’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
1,736 federal appellate · 366 district · 3,442 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7,029 later decisions (48 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Rakas v. Illinois (1979), United States v. Nixon (1974)
1,736 federal appellate · 366 district · 3,442 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
reviewedUnited States v. William Earl Matlock (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Brinegar v. United States · Coolidge v. New Hampshire · United States v. Ventresca · Johnson v. United States
Cited together with Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Illinois v. Rodriguez · Katz v. United States · Terry v. Ohio · Rakas v. Illinois
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 7,029 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“mutual use of the property by persons generally having joint access or control for most purposes, so that it is reasonable to recognize that any of the co-inhabitants has the right to permit the inspection in his own right and that the others have assumed the risk that one of their number might permit the common area to be searched.”
320 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises or effects sought to be inspected.”
117 later decisions quote this exact passage“when the prosecution seeks to justify a warrantless search by proof of voluntary consent, it is not limited to proof that consent was given by the defendant, but may show that permission to search was obtained from a third party who possessed common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises or effects sought to be inspected.”
68 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.