People v. Morris’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 23 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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““It must be borne in mind that the primary purpose of the constitutional guarantees is to prevent unreasonable invasions of the security of the people in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, and when an officer has reasonable cause to enter a dwelling to make an arrest and as an incident to that arrest is authorized to make a reasonable search, his entry and his search are not unreasonable. Suspects have no constitutional right to destroy or dispose of evidence, and no basic constitutional guarantees are violated because an officer succeeds in getting to a place where he is entitled to be more quickly than he would, had he complied with section 844. Moreover, since the demand and explanation requirements of section 844 are a codification of the common law, they may reasonably be interpreted as limited by the common law rules that compliance is not required if the officer’s peril would have been increased or the arrest frustrated had he demanded entrance and stated his purpose. Read v. Case, 4 Conn. 166 , 170 [ 10 Am.Dec. 110 ]; see Rest., Torts, § 206, comment d. Without the benefit of hindsight and ordinarily on the spur of the moment, the officer must decide these questions in the first instance. * * Moreover, since the officer’s right to invade defendant’s privacy clearly appears, there is no compelling need for strict compliance with the requirements of section 844 to protect basic constitutional guarantees. Cf. People v. Boyles, supra, 45 Cal.2d 652 , [656] 290 P.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williams v. United States · 261 Cal. App. 2d 338 - People v. Yeoman

2. ““We conclude therefore that when there is reasonable cause to make an arrest and search and the facts known to him before his entry are not inconsistent with a good faith belief on the part of the officer that compliance with section 844 is excused, his failure to comply with the formal requirements of that section does not justify the exclusion of the evidence he obtains.””

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