United States v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
598 F.2d 936 · 1979
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently January 1998
9 federal appellate · 3 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.
Relationships
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Aguilar v. Texas · Spinelli v. United States · Draper v. United States · Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Greer v. Spock
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 13 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The tip must contain a sufficient statement of the underlying circumstances from which the informer drew his conclusion that the suspect was engaged in criminal conduct.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the better practice is to obtain corroboration of incriminating details, quantum of knowledge (of) equivocal information ripened into probable cause”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the matter becomes more difficult when the corroborated facts concern activity wholly innocent.”
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.