United States v. Montoya De Hernandez’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
681 federal appellate · 181 district · 389 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,877 later decisions (27 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably United States v. Sokolow (1989), Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn. (1989)
681 federal appellate · 181 district · 389 state decisions — followed in 33 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
reviewedUnited States v. Montoya de Hernandez (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Wong Sun v. United States · Katz v. United States · Carroll v. United States · Brinegar v. United States
Cited together with Terry v. Ohio · United States v. Ramsey · United States v. Martinez-Fuerte · New Jersey v. T. L. O. · Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn.
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 1,877 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“depends on all of the circumstances surrounding the search or seizure and the nature of the search or seizure itself.”
31 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[r]outine searches of the persons and effects of entrants are not subject to any requirement of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or warrant.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Since the founding of our Republic, Congress has granted the Executive plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border, without probable cause or a warrant, in order to regulate the collection of duties and to prevent the introduction of contraband into this country.”
16 later decisions 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.