Michigan v.’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
748 federal appellate · 195 district · 764 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,735 later decisions (30 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2026 · most notably Illinois v. Gates (1983), United States v. Leon (1984)
748 federal appellate · 195 district · 764 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.
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Katz v. United States · Carroll v. United States · Brinegar v. United States · Beck v. State of Ohio
Cited together with Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Terry v. Ohio · Beck v. State of Ohio · Anderson v. Creighton · Illinois v. Gates
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 2,735 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“facts and circumstances within the officer's knowledge ... are sufficient to warrant a prudent person, or one of reasonable caution, in believing, in the circumstances shown, that the suspect has committed, is committing, or is about to commit an offense.”
168 later decisions quote this exact passage“the Constitution permits an officer to arrest a suspect without a warrant if there is probable cause to believe that the suspect has committed or is committing an offense.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“Under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, an arresting officer may, without a warrant[,] search a person validly arrested.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.