Stanberry v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 state decisions

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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In the instant case, the bus driver indicated to the officers that all the passengers had reboarded the bus. It was not until then that the officers began the interdiction process. Upon finding the bag and prior to opening it, the officers repeatedly inquired as to which of the passengers it might belong. These inquiries went unanswered. In [the troopers’] objective opinion, because they believed all the passengers that might have claimed ownership of the bag were present on the bus, they believed the bag had been abandoned. The trial court did not clearly err in stating that, although actual abandonment had not occurred, the officers, based on their knowledge and experience, acted reasonably in presuming the bag had been abandoned, based generally and on their knowledge at the specific time of the search. Moreover, “[t]o suppress the evidence in the face of such subdued official conduct would render all such interdiction programs suspect____” U.S. v. Flowers, 912 F.2d 707 at 712 (4th Cir.1990). On the facts presented by this case, the officers’ reasonable and objective basis for concluding that the bag had been abandoned was “much more than a calculated guess and cannot be described as an effort to conduct a fishing expedition.... The extreme sanction of exclusion would be inappropriate.... ” U.S. v. Owens, 848 F.2d 462 at 466 (4th Cir.1988). That is not to say, however, that searches of this type will not be invalidated. While close scrutiny of interdiction claims of “reaso”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. Stanberry v. State