14 Va. App. 474 - Bethea v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

34 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 34 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]e need not determine whether the de minimis rationale utilized in Mimms is applicable to a passenger in a vehicle when the initial vehicle stop is predicated solely on matters pertaining to the driver. The facts of this case only require the application of the more general principle that Fourth Amendment interests are not violated when a police officer can “point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Pryor v. Commonwealth · State v. Wilson

2. “The [F]ourth [A]mendment does not proscribe all seizures, only those that are `unreasonable.' Whether a seizure is unreasonable is determined by balancing the individual's right to be free from arbitrary government intrusions against society's countervailing interest in preventing or detecting crime and in protecting its law enforcement officers.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 33 Va. App. 494 - Hamlin v. Commonwealth · 14 Va. App. 787 - Woodson v. Commonwealth

3. “[t]he Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all seizures, only those that are `unreasonable.'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Thomas v. Com. · 14 Va. App. 787 - Woodson v. Commonwealth