United States v. Soriano’s Empirical Analysis
482 F.2d 469 · 1973
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 1 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently January 1993 · most notably United States v. Burke (1975), United States v. Eatherton (1975)
28 federal appellate · 1 district · 4 state decisions
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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3105 · 18 U.S.C. § 3731 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Carroll v. United States · Brinegar v. United States · Chimel v. California · Coolidge v. New Hampshire
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 43 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a civil officer of the United States authorized to enforce or assist in enforcing any law thereof or to a person so authorized by the President of the United States”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The only exigent circumstance advanced by the government in this case is that opening the suitcases immediately might have disclosed information which possibly would have led to the capture of others participating in the narcotics operation. This does not stand constitutional scrutiny. The argument proves too much. If this court were to accept as legitimate the government’s loosely defined concept of exigent circumstances, scarcely a case would remain in which a warrantless search for narcotics would not be justified. There is almost always a chance that newly discovered evidence will ensnare unknown accomplices.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority““In this case the search significantly increased the interference with privacy. As a factual matter it differed markedly from the initial seizure after which the contents of the suitcases remained undisclosed to the world.” “Thus the search was unlawful because it intruded on an interest protected by the Fourth Amendment and because a warrant could have been readily obtained without prejudicing the need for effective law enforcement.””
1 later decision 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.