McMorris v. Alioto’s Empirical Analysis
567 F.2d 897 · 1978
Citation profile
37 federal appellate · 1 district · 20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 78 later decisions — most recently August 2025 · most notably United States v. Crawford (2004), Dickerson ex rel. Davison v. Napolitano (2010)
37 federal appellate · 1 district · 20 state decisions — followed in 15 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 · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Adderley v. Florida · United States v. Davis
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 78 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The initial inquiry is whether a vital state interest justified the use of some search procedure at the San Francisco Hall of Justice. Both this court and the district court may take judicial notice that threats of violent acts directed at courthouses have given rise to an urgent need for protective measures.... In some cases judicially noted facts may be sufficient by themselves to justify a finding that a vital state interest establishes the necessity for a regulatory search. In any event, the need for the search is established in this case both by facts judicially noted and by specific aver-ments in the record.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Justice v. Elrod“do not consent to the search in the full and generally accepted meaning of that term”, the limited courthouse searches in question are "performed only after the individual seeking to enter the courthouse has consented, as that term is used in our previous decisions upholding limited searches.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[C]ases ... sustain[ing] limited searches of persons seeking to enter sensitive facilities recognize an exception to the general requirement of the [F]ourth [A]mendment that searches are proper only if conducted pursuant to a lawful warrant.[Cits.]”
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.