United States v. Hamilton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 district ·

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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he manner in which the information was obtained in Kyllo (a thermal-imaging device), however, bears no resemblance to obtaining power data from a third party by way of [a county attorney] subpoena. Crucial to the Kyllo holding was the intrusion on the home by “sense-enhancing technology ... not in general public use.” Id. at 34, 121 S.Ct. 2038 . Thus, while the information obtained may be similar, the means to obtaining the information is legally significant and defeats [McIntyre’s] argument. Instead, Smith v. Maryland, a case in the Miller line, is on point. There the court held that “[w]hen [defendant] used his phone, [he] voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the telephone company and ‘exposed’ that information to its equipment in the ordinary course of business” and therefore did not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in that information. Smith, 442 U.S. at 744 , 99 S.Ct. 2577 . Similarly, when [McIntyre] used power in his home, he voluntarily con veyed that information to [Cedar-Knox Public Power District]. As a result, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his power records.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. McIntyre

2. “Even if we direct our attention to the original checks and deposit slips, rather than to the microfilm copies actually received and obtained by means of the subpoena, we perceive no legitimate “expectation of privacy” in their contents. The checks are not confidential communications but negotiable instruments to be used in commercial transactions. All of the documents obtained, including financial statements and deposit slips, contain only information voluntarily conveyed to the banks and exposed to their employees in the ordinary course of business.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Golden Valley Electric Ass'n

3. “argues that power records are different. He relies on Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 , 121 S.Ct. 2038 , 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001) for the proposition that a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his power records because the information from the records is legally indistinguishable from the power information protected by the Fourth Amendment in Kyllo.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. McIntyre