Florida v. Bostick’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
1,472 federal appellate · 470 district · 3,175 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,490 later decisions (18 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Illinois v. Wardlow (2000), Ohio v. Robinette (1996)
1,472 federal appellate · 470 district · 3,175 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.
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Wong Sun v. United States · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Florida v. Royer · United States v. Mendenhall
Cited together with Terry v. Ohio · Florida v. Royer · United States v. Mendenhall · California v. Hodari D. · Michigan v. Chesternut
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 6,490 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions.”
494 later decisions quote this exact passage“threatening presence of several officers,”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“"`[T]he evidence in this cause has evoked images of other days, under other flags, when no man traveled his nation's roads or railways without fear of unwarranted interruption, by individuals who held temporary power in the government. The spectre of American citizens being asked, by badge-wielding police for identification, travel papers in short a raison d'etre is foreign to any fair reading of the Constitution, and its guarantee of human liberties. This is not Hitler's Berlin, nor Stalin's Moscow, nor is it white supremacist South Africa. Yet in Broward County, Florida, these police officers approach every person on board buses and trains ("that time permits") and check identification [and] tickets, [and] asked to search luggage all in the name of "voluntary cooperation" with law enforcement....'" 554 So.2d at 1158, quoting State v. Kerwick supra, at 348-349 (quoting trial court order).”
3 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.