United States v. Sharpe’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
1,379 federal appellate · 362 district · 2,235 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,022 later decisions (36 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably United States v. Sokolow (1989), Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn. (1989)
1,379 federal appellate · 362 district · 2,235 state decisions — followed in 48 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
reviewedSharpe v. United States (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Wong Sun v. United States · Anderson v. City of Bessemer City · United States v. Leon · Brinegar v. United States
Cited together with Terry v. Ohio · Florida v. Royer · United States v. Cortez · United States v. Sokolow · United States v. Place
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 5,022 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“whether the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly, during which time it was necessary to detain the defendant.”
278 later decisions quote this exact passage“whether the officer's action was justified at its inception, and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.”
39 later decisions quote this exact passage“the investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer's suspicion in a short period of time.”
20 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.