Posters 'N' Things, Ltd. v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1994
Citation profile
162 federal appellate · 26 district · 103 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 419 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Knowles v. Mirzayance (2009), Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010)
162 federal appellate · 26 district · 103 state decisions — followed in 24 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1956 (§ 1352 of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 1957 (§ 1352 of the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 371 · 18 U.S.C. § 751 · 18 U.S.C. § 921 (Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 801 (§ 101 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act) · 21 U.S.C. § 854 (§ 414 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Grayned v. City of Rockford · Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. · Hamling v. United States · Kolender v. Lawson · Russell 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 419 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the Government must establish that the defendant knew that the items are likely to be used with illegal drugs, it need not prove specific knowledge that the items are 'drug paraphernalia' within the meaning of the statute.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is sufficient that the defendant be aware that customers in general are likely to use the merchandise with drugs.”
5 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.