United States v. Ortiz’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
531 federal appellate · 57 district · 360 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,222 later decisions (54 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Rakas v. Illinois (1979), Ornelas v. United States (1996)
531 federal appellate · 57 district · 360 state decisions — followed in 37 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 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Schmerber v. State of California · Chambers v. Maroney · United States v. Brignoni-Ponce · Elkins v. United States
Cited together with United States v. Brignoni-Ponce · United States v. Martinez-Fuerte · Terry v. Ohio · Almeida-Sanchez v. United States · Carroll 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 1,222 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“At traffic checkpoints the motorist can see that other vehicles are being stopped, he can see visible signs of the officers' authority, and he is much less likely to be frightened or annoyed by the intrusion.”
41 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[O]fficers are entitled to draw reasonable inferences from [ ] facts in light of their knowledge of the area and their prior experience....”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The entire system, however, has been notably unsuccessful in deterring or stemming this heavy flow; and its costs, including added burdens on the courts, have been substantial. Perhaps the Judiciary should not strain to accommodate the requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the needs of a system which at best can demonstrate only minimal effectiveness as long as it is lawful for business firms and others to employ aliens who are illegally in the country.”
3 later decisions 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.