Illinois v. Gates’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
7,068 federal appellate · 1,579 district · 12,848 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28,769 later decisions (151 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably United States v. Leon (1984), Ornelas v. United States (1996)
7,068 federal appellate · 1,579 district · 12,848 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 Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Glasser v. United States
Cited together with United States v. Leon · Franks v. Delaware · Jones v. United States · Terry v. Ohio · Spinelli v. United States
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 28,769 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a”
2,200 later decisions quote this exact passage“approach that traditionally has informed probable-cause determinations was substituted in its place. The elements under the”
188 later decisions quote this exact passage“[P]robable cause requires only a probability or substantial chance of criminal activity, not an actual showing of such activity.”
151 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
How later courts have treated this case
Across 75 classified citations — whether each later court relied on, limited, or rejected this decision:
- 44followed
- 28explained
- 3distinguished
Treatment is classified from each citing court's own sentence. This is a running sample — coverage grows as the classification pass proceeds; overrulings are also tracked authoritatively in the case status.