United States v. Sokolow
E522187
United States v. Sokolow is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment, particularly in the context of drug courier profiling and investigative stops.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| United States v. Sokolow canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5478391 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Sokolow Context triple: [Terry v. Ohio, subsequentCitationBy, United States v. Sokolow]
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A.
United States v. Eichman
United States v. Eichman is a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a federal law banning flag desecration as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
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B.
Katz v. United States
Katz v. United States is a landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that redefined Fourth Amendment protections by establishing that the amendment safeguards people’s reasonable expectations of privacy, not just physical places.
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C.
United States v. Gratiot
United States v. Gratiot is an 1840 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld broad federal authority over public lands under the Constitution’s Property Clause.
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D.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States is an 1879 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the distinction between protected religious belief and regulable religiously motivated conduct, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with otherwise valid criminal laws such as those banning polygamy.
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E.
United States v. Singleton
United States v. Singleton is one of the 1883 U.S. Supreme Court decisions collectively known as the Civil Rights Cases, which limited federal enforcement of civil rights protections against private discrimination.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: United States v. Sokolow Target entity description: United States v. Sokolow is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment, particularly in the context of drug courier profiling and investigative stops.
-
A.
United States v. Eichman
United States v. Eichman is a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a federal law banning flag desecration as unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
-
B.
Katz v. United States
Katz v. United States is a landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that redefined Fourth Amendment protections by establishing that the amendment safeguards people’s reasonable expectations of privacy, not just physical places.
-
C.
United States v. Gratiot
United States v. Gratiot is an 1840 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld broad federal authority over public lands under the Constitution’s Property Clause.
-
D.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States is an 1879 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the distinction between protected religious belief and regulable religiously motivated conduct, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with otherwise valid criminal laws such as those banning polygamy.
-
E.
United States v. Singleton
United States v. Singleton is one of the 1883 U.S. Supreme Court decisions collectively known as the Civil Rights Cases, which limited federal enforcement of civil rights protections against private discrimination.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
U.S. Supreme Court case
ⓘ
criminal procedure case ⓘ search and seizure case ⓘ |
| appliedTest | totality of the circumstances ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
United States constitutional law
ⓘ
United States criminal procedure ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1988-10-31 ⓘ |
| chiefJusticeAtDecision | William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| citation | 490 U.S. 1 ⓘ |
| citedFor |
definition of reasonable suspicion
ⓘ
use of profiles in investigative stops ⓘ |
| concurrenceBy |
Harry A. Blackmun
ⓘ
Thurgood Marshall ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvision | Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decidedIn | 1989 ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1989-04-03 ⓘ |
| dissentBy |
John Paul Stevens
ⓘ
William J. Brennan Jr. ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 87-1295 ⓘ |
| factPattern | Investigatory stop of a suspected drug courier at an airport based on multiple suspicious travel characteristics. ⓘ |
| fullName | United States v. Sokolow ⓘ |
| holding |
Officers may have reasonable suspicion to justify an investigative stop based on the totality of the circumstances even when each individual factor is consistent with innocent travel.
ⓘ
Use of a drug courier profile does not, by itself, render a stop unconstitutional if reasonable suspicion exists under the totality of the circumstances. ⓘ |
| involves |
airport stop
ⓘ
drug enforcement investigation ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
Antonin Scalia ⓘ Byron R. White ⓘ John Paul Stevens ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ |
| jurisdiction |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| legalIssue |
Fourth Amendment
ⓘ
Terry stop ⓘ drug courier profile ⓘ investigative stop ⓘ reasonable suspicion standard ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| page | 1 ⓘ |
| petitioner |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| precedentialStatus | binding precedent in U.S. federal courts ⓘ |
| relatedDoctrine | Terry v. Ohio ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| respondent | Andrew Sokolow ⓘ |
| standardClarified | reasonable suspicion ⓘ |
| topic |
criminal procedure
ⓘ
search and seizure law ⓘ |
| volume | 490 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: United States v. Sokolow Description of subject: United States v. Sokolow is a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case that clarified the standard for reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment, particularly in the context of drug courier profiling and investigative stops.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.