State v. Atkinson’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
252 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 252 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably State v. Ferreira (1999), State v. Flowers (1998)
252 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
Relies on Delaware v. Prouse · State v. McAfee · State v. Emory · State v. Naccarato
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 252 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“On May 7, 1993, at approximately 11:45 p.m., Captain Brian McNary ... was driving northbound on Main Street in Hailey, Idaho, and observed a vehicle traveling ahead of him. The vehicle, which was driven by Atkinson, moved to the left so that its left tires crossed onto or over the center line. When the vehicle had continued down Main Street for approximately two blocks, McNary saw it again veer to the left so that the tires touched but did not entirely cross the center line. The vehicle then swerved to the right across the traffic lane and touched the fog line with its right-side tires.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Flowers“We agree with the magistrate that these observations supported a reasonable suspicion that the vehicle driver was intoxicated, and justified an investigatory stop. Although [the driver’s] vehicle never entirely left its lane of travel, this weaving pattern, with the vehicle three times touching the lines on edges of the lane, was not within the range of normal driving behavior and was an objective indication that the driver was impaired.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Flowers
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.