159 Wis. 2d 91 - State v. Ellenbecker’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
47 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 47 later decisions — most recently October 2021 · most notably State v. Ryon (2005), State v. Reynolds (1995)
47 state decisions — followed in 13 states
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 Terry v. Ohio · United States v. Mendenhall · Delaware v. Prouse · Cady v. Dombrowski · 76 Wis. 2d 457 - Bies v. State
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 47 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[a] community caretaker action is one that is totally divorced from the detection, investigation or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“[E]ven seemingly innocent activity, such as refueling a disabled car, could later turn out to be theft of a car that was left on the shoulder of the highway.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Holly v. State · State v. Kramer“There are several reasons for permitting a police officer to ask for a driver’s license under these circumstances. In making any stop, whether the stop is to enforce the traffic laws or to cany out the officer’s community caretaker function, an officer should be allowed to identify, with certainty, the person with whom he is dealing. This is necessary to protect himself and other officers from danger, to accurately prepare any required reports concerning his contact with the motorist, and to allow the officer to adequately respond to allegations of illegal conduct or improper behavior— There is also a valid public interest in permitting a police officer to run a record check on a driver’s license under these circumstances. The need to identify the person with whom a police officer is dealing would logically extend to making a correct identification and determining the validity and status of the driver’s license upon which the identification is based.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Martinez
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.