United States v. Torres’s Empirical Analysis
751 F.2d 875 · 1984
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 6 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 105 later decisions — most recently March 2024 · most notably United States v. Villegas (1990), 123 Wash. 2d 260 - City of Seattle v. McCready (1994)
44 federal appellate · 6 district · 23 state decisions — followed in 18 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
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2384 · 18 U.S.C. § 2510 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2511 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2516 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) · 18 U.S.C. § 3103A · 18 U.S.C. § 3731 · 50 U.S.C. § 1801 (§ 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978)
Relies on Katz v. United States · Brinegar v. United States · Johnson v. United States · Boyd v. United States · Weeks 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 105 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) the judge issuing the warrant must find that “normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous,” 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (3)(c); (2) the warrant must contain “a particular description of the type of [activity] sought to be [videotaped], and a statement of the particular offense to which it relates,” id. § 2518(4)(c); (3) the warrant must not allow the period of [surveillance] to be “longer than is necessary to achieve the objective of the authorization,[]or in any event longer than thirty days” (though extensions are possible) id. § 2518(5); and (4) the warrant must require that the [surveillance] “be conducted in such a way as to minimize the [videotaping] of [activity] not otherwise subject to [surveillance] ...” id.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[T]he soundtrack of a videotape, no less than a free-standing tape recording, is within the scope of Title III____ But we are unwilling to go further and hold that warrants for television surveillance are subject to Title III, as warrants for bugging and wiretapping are____ Of course it is anomalous to have detailed statutory regulation of bugging and wiretapping but not of television surveillance, in Title III, and detailed statutory regulation of television surveillance of foreign agents but not of domestic criminal suspects, in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; and we would think it a very good thing if Congress responded to the issues discussed in this opinion by amending Title III to bring television surveillance within its scope. But judges are not authorized to amend statutes even to bring them up to date____ When Congress has indicated the domain of a statute as clearly as it did when it enacted Title III, we cannot apply the statute outside its domain merely because we are confident that if Congress had known then what we know now it would have used more general language. Congress said in language that could not be clearer that Title III is about the interception of wire and oral communications and that interception means aural acquisition. There is no way in which these words can be read to include silent television surveillance; and the legislative history ... indicates that the exclusion from the scope of the statute of other methods of surveillance besid”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent““It does not follow, however, that because Title III does not authorize warrants for television surveillance, it forbids them. The motto of the Prussian state—that everything which is not permitted is forbidden—is not a helpful guide to statutory interpretation. Television sur veillance (with no soundtrack) just is not within the statute’s domain.” 751 F.2d at 880 .”
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.