United States v. Bowen’s Empirical Analysis
500 F.2d 960 · 1974
Citation profile
85 federal appellate · 2 district · 10 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 111 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2014 · most notably United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975), United States v. Martinez-Fuerte (1976)
85 federal appellate · 2 district · 10 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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 7607 · 49 U.S.C. § 304 · 8 U.S.C. § 110 · 8 U.S.C. § 1357 (§ 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (McCarran-Walter))
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Carroll v. United States · Mapp v. Ohio · North Carolina v. Pearce · Stovall v. Denno
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 111 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[I]f a search takes place at a location where virtually everyone searched has just come from the other side of the border, the search is a functional equivalent of a border search. In contrast, if a search takes place at a location where a significant number of those stopped are domestic travelers going from one point to another within the United States, the search is not the functional equivalent of a border search.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“by definition, without a new rule, there is no change in the law and the question of retroactivity is immaterial.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Although it is true that statutes have to be measured by the Constitution, a legally enacted statute becomes the law until it is vitiated by a court decision. Where the constitutionality of the statute has been repeatedly upheld by the lower courts, it becomes a clear precedent for law enforcement action. Prior statutory law should be treated no differently from prior case law.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.