United States v. DeBacker’s Empirical Analysis
1980
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 1 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2007 · most notably Oliver v. United States (1984), 102 Wash. 2d 506 - State v. Myrick (1984)
11 federal appellate · 1 district · 15 state decisions — followed in 10 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3500 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Katz v. United States · Hester v. United States · United States v. White · Ryan v. United States · Whitten 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[Defendant's relatively minor expectations of privacy do not outweigh the value to society in permitting such non-intrusive surveillance. The police were in a place they otherwise had a right to be, and defendant’s fields were plainly observable from the air. Merely because defendant neatly planted contraband in places not observable from the road doesn’t mean that all surveillance of the property thereafter is foreclosed. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, not all searches and seizures.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The ultimate question, therefore, is not whether the surveillance in this case occurred in 'open fields'. Instead, the issue is whether 'if the particular form of surveillance practiced by the police is permitted to go unregulated by constitutional restraints, the amount of privacy and freedom remaining to citizens would be diminished to a compass inconsistent with the aims of a free and open society.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Katz compels a more sensitive reading of the Fourth Amendment ... Instead of declaring entire areas as outside of Fourth Amendment protection, I believe Katz compels an analysis of the particular type of surveillance, and its effect on the privacy and security of citizens.”
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.