United States v. McCarty’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 5 district · 3 state decisions

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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On remand, the district court’s probable cause determination should proceed in two steps. First, the court should decide what materials may be considered in determining whether probable cause existed to arrest McCarty. As [United States v. Jensen, 425 F.3d 698 (9th Cir.2005),] illustrates, courts generally consider the information known to the arresting officers at the time of the arrest. Here, Serrao testified that he had viewed all of the photographs in McCarty’s envelope and perhaps also some of the textual materials before making the arrest. The general rule must, however, be narrowed here, because the fruits of an unlawful search cannot provide probable cause for an arrest, see Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 16-17 , 68 S.Ct. 367 , 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948), and it is clear some portion of this search was unlawful. Although — consistent with our enumeration of the search’s lawful scope^— all of the photographs viewed by the screeners as part of the lawful search for explosives must be considered in reaching a probable cause determination, the textual materials seen by the screeners may only be considered if the government demonstrates that suppression is an inappropriate remedy. Similarly, the photographs not viewed by the screeners may be considered only if they do not constitute fruit of the poisonous tree.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. McCarty

2. “To show that the police had probable cause to arrest McCarty, the government is required to prove only that “ ‘at the moment of arrest the facts and circumstances within the knowledge of the arresting officers and of which they had reasonably trustworthy Information were sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the petitioner had committed or was committing an offense.’ ” United States v. Jensen, 425 F.3d 698, 704 (9th Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. Bernard, 623 F.2d 551, 559 (9th Cir.1980)). Under this objective standard, the government need not “show [] that the officer[s’] belief is more likely true than false,” United States v. Brobst, 558 F.3d 982, 997 (9th Cir.2009), and need not demonstrate “probable cause for every element of the offense,” Blankenhorn v. City of Orange, 485 F.3d 463, 472 (9th Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, the government must show that the officers had an objectively reasonable belief that McCarty committed a crime, based on the totality of the relevant circumstances. See Luchtel v. Hagemann, 623 F.3d 975, 979 (9th Cir.2010). Accordingly, the government is not required to prove that all or any of the photographs actually exhibited child pornography in order to establish probable cause for McCarty’s arrest.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. McCarty

3. “[In administrative-search cases,] consideration of the government actor's actual motivation has been limited to an inquiry into the programmatic purposes motivating the search.... [T]his inquiry 'is not an invitation to probe the minds of individual officers acting at the scene.' ... '[T]he subjective motive of the individual conducting the search will not invalidate the search.' " (quoting Edmond , 531 U.S. at 48 ; United States v. Bulacan , 156 F.3d 963 , 967 (9th Cir. 1998) ) ); United States v. Tsai , 282 F.3d 690 , 695 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that Edmond provides for an inquiry into purpose and scope of the overall administrative search "scheme,”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Johnson