2001 Pa. Super. 284 - Commonwealth v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he task of an issuing authority is simply to make a practical, commonsense decision whether, given all of the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the veracity and basis of knowledge of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. Thus, the totality of the circumstances test permits a balanced • assessment of the relative weights of all the various indicia of reliability (and unreliability) attending an informant’s tip.... It is the duty of a court reviewing an issuing authority’s probable cause determination to ensure that the magistrate had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed. In so doing, the reviewing court must accord deference to the issuing authority’s probable cause determination, and must view the information offered to establish probable cause in a common-sense, non-technical manner.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2007 Pa. Super. 34 - Commonwealth v. Dukeman · 2013 Pa. Super. 64 - Commonwealth v. Harvard

2. “A magistrate's finding of probable cause must be based on facts described within the four corners of the affidavit[,] and our scope of review of a suppression court's ruling is confined primarily to questions of law.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Manuel