United States v. Copeman’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 1 state decisions

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

1. “Motion to Return Property. A person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property's return. The motion must be filed in the district where the property was seized. The court must receive evidence on any factual issue necessary to decide the motion. If it grants the motion, the court must return the property to the movant, but may impose reasonable conditions to protect access to the property and its use in later proceedings.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Shigemura · United States v. Parsons

2. “limited circumstances under which Rule 41( [g]) can be used as a vehicle to petition for the return of property seized by state authorities. Those circumstances include actual federal possession of the property forfeited by the state, constructive federal possession where the property was considered evidence in the federal prosecution, or instances where property was seized by state officials acting at the direction of federal authorities in an agency capacity.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 282 F. App'x 735 - United States v. Roberts

3. “On remand from Stevens II, the district court concluded, based on the Government's undisputed evidence, that the Government no longer possessed Mr. Stevens' property. Because the district court found that the Government was not in possession of any of Mr. Stevens' property, the court did not abuse its discretion in denying Mr. Stevens' Rule 41(g) motion. Consequently, we affirm the judgment of the district court.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. DeLOGE v. State