United States v. Stone’s Empirical Analysis
866 F.2d 359 · 1989
Citation profile
51 federal appellate · 17 district · 35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 121 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably United States v. Bloomfield (1994), United States v. Fernandez (1994)
51 federal appellate · 17 district · 35 state decisions — followed in 19 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. § 2 · 21 U.S.C. § 841 (§ 401 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Schneckloth v. Bustamonte · Chambers v. Maroney · Berkemer v. McCarty · United States v. Ross · United States v. Place
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 121 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We agree with the district judge that the dog’s instinctive actions did not violate the Fourth Amendment. There is no evidence, nor does Stone contend, that the police asked Stone to open the hatchback so the dog could jump in. Nor is there any evidence the police handler encouraged the dog to jump in the car.... In these circumstances, we think the police remained within the range of activities they may permissibly engage in when they have reasonable suspicion to believe an automobile contains narcotics.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[p]eople have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior of their automobiles.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A “canine sniff” by a well-trained narcotics detection dog, however, does not require opening the luggage. It does not expose noncontraband items that otherwise would remain hidden from public view, as does, for example, an officer’s rummaging through the contents of the luggage. Thus, the manner in which information is obtained through this investigative technique is much less intrusive than a typical search. Moreover, the sniff discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics, a contraband item. Thus, despite the fact that the sniff tells the authorities something about the contents of the luggage, the information obtained is limited. This limited disclosure also ensures that the owner of the property is not subjected to the embarrassment and inconvenience entailed in less discriminate and more intrusive investigative methods. In these respects the canine sniff is sui generis. We are aware of no other investigative procedure that is so limited both in the manner in which the information is obtained and in the content of the information revealed by the procedure. Therefore, we conclude that the particu lar course of investigation that the agents intended to pursue here — exposure of respondent’s luggage, which was located in a public place, to a trained canine — did not constitute a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”
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.