Baca v. People’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

21 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 22 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The decisions have not been altogether harmonious, but throughout all the cases and all the learned treatises on the subject runs the dominant theme that the search, whether under a valid search warrant or whether as incident to a lawfull arrest, must be one in which the officers are looking for specific articles and must be conducted in a manner reasonably calculated to uncover such articles. Any search more extensive than this constitutes a general exploratory search and is squarely within the interdiction of the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.. . . It was against just such exploratory searches that the Fourth Amendment was specifically directed. On the other hand, it appears from the authorities that if an officer is conducting a search, either under a valid search warrant or incident to a valid arrest where the search is such as is reasonably designed to uncover the articles for which he is looking and in the course of such search discovers contraband or articles the possession of which is a crime, other than those for which he was originally searching, he is not required to shut his eyes and refrain from seizing that material under the penalty that if he does seize it it cannot be admitted in evidence.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 32 Colo. App. 79 - In Re People