United States v. Lott’s Empirical Analysis
870 F.2d 778 · 1989
Citation profile
33 federal appellate · 5 district · 15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 62 later decisions — most recently January 2025 · most notably United States v. Rodriguez-Morales (1991), United States v. Jackson (1990)
33 federal appellate · 5 district · 15 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 18 U.S.C. § 922 (Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act)
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Adams v. Williams · Delaware v. Prouse · Berkemer v. McCarty · Sibron v. State of New York Peters
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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e do not read [Terry ] as permitting a frisk where, although the circumstances might pass an objective test, the officers in the field were not actually concerned for their safety.... An officer cannot have a reasonable suspicion that a person is armed and dangerous when he in fact has no such suspicion.... [A]n officer must have an actual suspicion that weapons are present before a Terry search can be made....”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Nothing in Terry can be understood to allow a generalized `cursory search for weapons' or indeed, any search whatever for anything but weapons.”
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.