12 Va. App. 404 - Moore v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he sole fact upon which the officer based his justification for the pat-down search was that Moore appeared “very nervous.” This nervousness was reflected by Moore’s hands shaking and the stuttering and stammering of his words when he spoke to the officer. Other than this appearance of nervousness, the facts reflect a routine stop by the police for a speeding violation. The stop took place in the early afternoon and Moore was alone in his car. Moore made no attempt to evade the police. He made no unusual gestures to suggest that he might have a weapon on his person or within the car. Though the officer was aware Moore was under surveillance, the officer conceded he did not know why Moore was being watched and he did not know of any other reason to believe Moore might have been armed or dangerous. Finally, the officer admitted that it is common for a person to be nervous when stopped by the police. In short, the officer based the pat down on his subjective evaluation of the severity of Moore’s nervousness. Based on this record, we hold that the officer lacked sufficient justification to conduct the pat-down search.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Pryor v. Commonwealth