Hudson v. Michigan’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
459 federal appellate · 111 district · 626 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,633 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably Herring v. United States (2009), McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)
459 federal appellate · 111 district · 626 state decisions — followed in 43 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 Michigan Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3109 · 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Illinois v. Gates · Wong Sun v. United States · Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics
Cited together with United States v. Leon · Herring v. United States · Wong Sun v. United States · Illinois v. Gates · Brown v. Illinois
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 1,633 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Evidence should not be excluded ... based on a constitutional violation unless the illegality is at least a but-for cause of obtaining the evidence.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Suppression of evidence ... has always been our last resort, not our first impulse. The exclusionary rule generates substantial social costs, which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large. We have therefore been cautious against expanding it, and have repeatedly emphasized that the rule’s costly toll upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging its application. We have rejected indiscriminate application of the rule, and have held it to be applicable only where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served — that is, where its deterrence benefits outweigh its substantial social costs.”
23 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[w]hat the knock-and-announce rule has never protected ... is one's interest in preventing the government from seeing or taking evidence described in a warrant.”
21 later decisions 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.