Florida v. Royer’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
2,758 federal appellate · 675 district · 5,886 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 11,216 later decisions (95 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Illinois v. Gates (1983), Ornelas v. United States (1996)
2,758 federal appellate · 675 district · 5,886 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.
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Wong Sun v. United States · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Brinegar v. United States · Chimel v. California
Cited together with Terry v. Ohio · United States v. Mendenhall · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · United States v. Sharpe · United States v. Cortez
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 11,216 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The scope of the detention must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification.”
261 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“law enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions.”
239 later decisions quote this exact passage“a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave.”
68 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.