State v. Read’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 76 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 83 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably Travelers Insurance v. Carpenter (2005), State v. Muscari (2002)
2 federal appellate · 2 district · 76 state decisions
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 Kolender v. Lawson · Dombrowski v. Pfister · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota · City of Houston v. Hill
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 83 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In State v. Read, 165 Vt. 141 , 680 A.2d 944 (1996), the Vermont Supreme Court observed that [t]he fact that police officers ... are trained to deal calmly and authoritatively with disorderly persons does not guarantee that police officers are immune from reacting instinctively in the face of an abusive tirade- While police officers are experienced at handling unruly persons, the corollary is that police officers are obligated to confront such persons frequently. We may rightly expect that a police officer will act in accordance with his or her training or disciplinary rules. But to fashion from this expectation a judicial rule that relieves a person from the reach of a criminal statute solely because the victim is a police officer is to invite the use of abusive language toward police officers. We do not believe that such a rule is sound in practice or in principle.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“In 1972, the Legislature amended Vermont's 'breach of the peace' statute to follow the 'disorderly conduct' language of [the Code.] . . . The major statutory change was the added requirement that the State prove, as an essential element of the offense, that a defendant acted with the intent to cause public inconvenience or annoyance, or with such recklessness as to create a risk of public inconvenience or annoyance.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. State v. Jackowski“A person who, with intent to cause public inconvenience, or annoyance or recklessly creating a risk thereof: (3) In a public place uses abusive or obscene language shall be imprisoned for not more than 60 days or fined not more than $500.00 or both.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Long v. L'ESPERANCE
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.