United States v. Miller’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
583 federal appellate · 235 district · 621 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,106 later decisions (43 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Rakas v. Illinois (1979), United States v. Jacobsen (1984)
583 federal appellate · 235 district · 621 state decisions — followed in 42 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. Miller (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Katz v. United States · Buckley v. Valeo · Paul v. Davis · Boyd v. United States · Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden
Cited together with Katz v. United States · Smith v. Maryland · Rakas v. Illinois · Couch v. United States · Fisher 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 2,106 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This Court has held repeatedly that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed in the third party will not be betrayed.”
111 later decisions quote this exact passage“general rule that the issuance of a subpoena to a third party to obtain the records of that party does not [itself] violate the rights of a defendant.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The people shall have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and other possessions against unreasonable searches, seizures, invasions of privacy or interceptions of communications by eavesdropping devices or other means. No warrant shall issue without probable cause, supported by affidavit particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.” Ill. Const. 1970, art. 1, §6.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.