United States v. Fowler’s Empirical Analysis
439 F.2d 133 · 1971
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 2 district · 13 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions — most recently February 2017 · most notably United States v. Pheaster (1976), United States v. Baxter (1973)
34 federal appellate · 2 district · 13 state decisions — followed in 10 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.
Relationships
Applies 19 U.S.C. § 1459 (Tariff Act of 1930)
Relies on Simmons v. United States · Gilbert v. California · Mason v. United States · United States v. Zeiler · United States v. Williams
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Despite the hazards of initial identification by photograph, this procedure has been used widely and effectively in criminal law enforcement, from the standpoint both of apprehending offenders and of sparing innocent suspects the ignominy of arrest by allowing eye witnesses to exonerate them through scrutiny of photographs. The danger that use of the techniques may result in convictions based on misidentification may be substantially lessened by a course of cross examination at trial which exposes to the jury the method’s potential for error. We are unwilling to prohibit its employment, either in the exercise of our supervisory power or, still less, as a matter of constitutional requirement. Instead, we hold that each case must be considered on its own facts, and that convictions based on eyewitness identification at trial following a pre-trial identification by photograph will be set aside on that ground only if the photographic identification procedure was so impermissibly suggestive as to give rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““After having arrested Fowler and placed him in custody, the investigating officers ultimately went to the used car lot where the car had been purchased. They spoke with the car salesman, Valencio, and showed him two photographs of Fowler, taken on the night of his arrest. No other photographs were displayed. The salesman indicated that the man pictured was the one who had bought the car in the name of Ellis.” Id. at 133-134 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]hat there is no right to counsel at such pre-trial photographic identification proceedings does not mean that due process cannot be violated at that stage.”
1 later decision 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.