State v. Sparr’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The first tier of police-citizen encounters involves no restraint of the liberty of the citizen involved, but rather the voluntary cooperation of the citizen is elicited through non-coercive questioning. This type of contact does not rise to the level of a seizure and therefore is outside the realm of fourth amendment protection. . . . The second category, the investigative stop, is limited to brief, non-intrusive detention during a frisk for weapons or preliminary questioning. This type of encounter is considered a ‘seizure’ sufficient to invoke fourth amendment safeguards, but because of its less intrusive character requires only that the stopping officer have specific and articulable facts sufficient to give rise to reasonable suspicion that a person has committed or is committing a crime. . . . The third type of police-citizen encounters, arrests, [is] characterized by highly intrusive or lengthy search or detention. The fourth amendment requires that an arrest be justified by probable cause to believe that a person has committed or is committing a crime.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Hisey

2. “personal safety and maintain the status quo during an investigative stop”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 92 Mass. App. Ct. 742 - Commonwealth v. Ramirez