United States v. Sinclair’s Empirical Analysis
983 F.2d 598 · 1993
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 34 later decisions — most recently May 2025 · most notably United States v. Leshuk (1995), United States v. Hamlin (2003)
14 federal appellate · 1 district · 6 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) · 21 U.S.C. § 846 (§ 406 of the Controlled Substances Act)
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Terry v. Ohio · Illinois v. Gates · Brinegar v. United States · Florida v. Royer
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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“officer's reasonable belief [that a particular suspect is armed and dangerous] may derive as much from his experience in similar cases as from his precise knowledge of the dangerous propensities of the suspect at hand.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“'There is no reason why an officer, rightfully but forcibly confronting a person suspected of a serious crime, should have to ask one question and take the risk that the answer might be a bullet'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“experience with drug traffickers might lead law enforcement officials to fear bodily harm in conducting a Terry stop”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.