United States v. Epperson’s Empirical Analysis
454 F.2d 769 · 1972
Citation profile
45 federal appellate · 4 district · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 85 later decisions — most recently August 2025 · most notably United States v. Davis (1973), Horton ex rel. Horton v. Goose Creek Independent School District (1982)
45 federal appellate · 4 district · 22 state decisions — followed in 14 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
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Elkins v. United States · Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco · See v. City of Seattle · Moses Lake Homes, Inc. v. Grant County
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 85 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““the search for the sole purpose of discovering weapons and preventing air piracy, and not for the purpose of discovering weapons and pre-criminal events, fully justified the minimal invasion of personal privacy by magnetometer. The use of the device, unlike frisking, cannot possibly be ‘an annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience,’ Terry, supra at 25 , 88 S.Ct. at 1882 . . . .”454 F.2d at 771.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The rationale of Terry is not limited to protection of the investigating officer, but extends to ‘others in danger.’ Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at [27], 88 S.Ct. 1868 , 20 L.Ed.2d 889 . That all passengers are endangered by the presence of weapons on aircraft needs no exposition.” 454 F.2d at 772 . (Emphasis added.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Since the use of the magnetometer was justified at its inception, and since the subsequent physical frisk was justified by the information developed by the magnetometer, and since the search was limited in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place, we hold the search and seizure not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”
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.