Case Citator › Davis v. United States

Davis v. United States

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
564 U.S. 229
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
147 of 176
Citing cases (total)
1,410
Treatment dates
2012–2017
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Davis v. United States remains binding, but its reach has been limited in one context and criticized in another, as listed below. Of the 176 flagged citations, 147 were substantively read.
More on how this was screened

The Florida Supreme Court declined to extend Davis to police reliance on nonfinal, unsettled precedent, and United States v. Amaya criticized its objective-compliance rule while acknowledging that it remained binding.

The treatments below are confirmed; unread citations could still change the overall status.
Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case, except the ones whose text could not be retrieved.

1,410 later cases cite Davis v. United States; 176 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading; 147 of them have been read, and the text of 29 citing opinions could not be retrieved, so those remain unread. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Davis v. United States?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Florida Supreme Court declined to extend Davis's good-faith exception to officers who relied on nonfinal precedent in a rapidly developing and unsettled area of law.

    Christopher L. Carpenter v. State of Florida · Supreme Court of Florida · filed

    The State and our dissenting colleagues in this case seek to expand Davis to the significantly different facts here. We reject that expansion.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Criticized

  • The court criticized Davis's rule that objective compliance with binding appellate precedent establishes good faith, reasoning that the standard rewards officers who do not actually know the governing law.

    United States v. Amaya · N.D. Iowa · filed

    Though I am bound to follow it, I disagree with the Court’s equation of reliance on binding appellate precedent with mere compliance. This expansive and overly lenient standard undermines the need for law enforcement to stay current with evolving precedent and rewards them when they happen to guess correctly without actually knowing the law. If I could apply what I view to be the preferred standard — knowledge of and reliance on, rather than compliance with, specific appellate precedent — the prosecution’s argument would fail, as it presented no evidence that Special Agent Jensen and his colleagues were specifically aware of Marquez.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Does this case still carry your argument?

Describe your facts. Ezel reads Davis v. United States and the cases that treated it, then tells you whether it still holds for your situation, with citations.

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