United States v. Herzbrun’s Empirical Analysis
723 F.2d 773 · 1984
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 4 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 61 later decisions — most recently August 2025 · most notably United States v. Four Million, Two Hundred Fifty-Five Thousand (1985), United States v. Smith (2006)
29 federal appellate · 4 district · 12 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 Terry v. Ohio · Carroll v. United States · Brinegar v. United States · Draper v. United States · Babich 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 61 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Probable cause exists if the facts and circumstances within the arresting officer’s knowledge and of which he had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed. The arresting officer need not have in hand sufficient evidence to convict, because when assessing probable cause we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act. In other words, probable cause must not be judged with clinical detachment, but with a common sense view to the realities of normal life.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[There is almost] a complete absence of any stigma attached to being subjected to a search at a known, designated airport search point. As one commentator has put it in the border search context, “individuals searched because of their membership in a morally neutral class have less cause to fell insulted ...” In addition, the offensiveness of the screen ing process is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the person to be searched must voluntarily come to and enter the search area. He has every opportunity to avoid the procedure by not entering the boarding area. Finally, the circumstances under which the airport search is conducted make it much less likely that abuses will occur. Unlike searches conducted on dark and lonely streets at night where often the officer and the subject are the only witnesses, these searches are made under supervision and not far from the scrutiny of the traveling public. Moreover, the airlines, which have their representatives present, have a definite and substantial interest in assuring that their passengers are not unnecessarily harassed. The officers conducting the search under these circumstances are much more likely to be solicitous of the Fourth Amendment rights of the traveling public than in more isolated, unsupervised surroundings.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Established search procedures are more valuable for what they discourage than what they discover”
2 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.