State v. Elison’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 district · 165 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 169 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[W]hen a person takes precautions to place items behind or underneath seats, in trunks or glove boxes, or uses other methods of ensuring that those items may not be accessed and viewed without permission, there is no obvious reason to believe that any privacy interest with regard to those items has been surrendered simply because those items happen to be in an automobile. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that the ‘pervasive and continuing governmental controls and regulations’ of automobiles could serve to reduce someone’s expectation of privacy in items so stowed. Although the State may have a legitimate interest in securing compliance with safety and traffic regulations, there is absolutely no logical connection between prohibitions such as driving with expired registration stickers or a noisy muffler, and the State’s need to conduct a warrantless search behind the seat of an automobile. Visual inspections of license plates for expired tags do not entail searches of glove boxes, trunks, and underneath seats.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Gary · State v. Tackitt

2. “Because of the legitimate privacy interests implicated and the invasive and generally overbroad nature of the state's intrusion on these interests, the search of an automobile requires more than merely the existence of probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime. On the foregoing basis, we conclude that, despite any language to the contrary in our previous decisions, there is no "automobile exception" to the search warrant requirement under the Montana Constitution. Rather, as we have consistently held, a warrantless search of an automobile requires the existence of probable cause as well as a generally applicable exception to the warrant requirement such as a plain view search, a search incident to arrest, or exigent circumstances.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Boyer · State v. Snell

3. “‘law enforcement officers need not administer Miranda warnings to suspects during brief investigative encounters even if those encounters are somewhat coercive. Moreover, we have stated that an interrogation is not custodial unless there is a significant restriction of personal liberty similar to an arrest ... and even temporary confinement as a safety precaution does not render the detention 'custodial’ for Miranda purposes ....””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. D. Hurlbert