United States v. Cortez’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
2,462 federal appellate · 513 district · 5,394 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 10,083 later decisions (64 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Illinois v. Gates (1983), Florida v. Royer (1983)
2,462 federal appellate · 513 district · 5,394 state decisions — followed in 49 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. Cortez (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (§ 274 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter))
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Adams v. Williams · Delaware v. Prouse · United States v. Brignoni-Ponce
Cited together with Terry v. Ohio · United States v. Brignoni-Ponce · United States v. Sokolow · Florida v. Royer · Adams 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 10,083 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.”
634 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.