United States v. Donovan’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
431 federal appellate · 135 district · 119 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 939 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2024 · most notably Ybarra v. Illinois (1980), Scott v. United States (1978)
431 federal appellate · 135 district · 119 state decisions — followed in 23 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. Donovan (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2511 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2520 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 371 · 18 U.S.C. § 3731
Relies on Katz v. United States · Berger v. New York · United States v. Giordano · United States v. Kahn
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 939 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“failure to satisfy any of those statutory requirements that directly and substantially implement the congressional intention to limit the use of intercept procedures to those situations clearly calling for the employment of this extraordinary investigative device.”
89 later decisions quote this exact passage“the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage“23 There is no suggestion in this case that the Government agents knowingly failed to identify respondents Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzaco for the purpose of keeping relevant information from the District Court that might have prompted the court to conclude that probable cause was lacking. If such a showing had been made, we would have a different case. Nor is there any suggestion that as a result of the failure to name these three respondents they were denied the mandatory inventory notice supplied to persons named in the application. 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (8)(d). Respondents Donovan, Robbins, and Buzzaco were among the 37 persons served with the initial inventory.”
4 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.