2001 Pa. Super. 340 - Commonwealth v. Swartz’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. “In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, our responsibility is to determine whether the record supports the suppression court’s factual findings and the legitimacy of the inferences and legal conclusions drawn from those findings. If the suppression court held for the prosecution, we consider only the evidence of the prosecution’s witnesses and so much of the evidence for the defense as, fairly read in the context of the record as a whole, remains uncontradicted. When the factual findings of the suppression court are supported by the evidence, the appellate court may reverse if there is an error in the legal conclusions drawn from those factual findings.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2003 Pa. Super. 335 - Commonwealth v. Lana · 2002 Pa. Super. 354 - Commonwealth v. Snell

2. “To have reasonable suspicion, police officers need not personally observe the illegal or suspicious conduct, but may rely upon the information of third parties, including “tips” from citizens. Naturally, if a tip has a relatively low de gree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were more reliable”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2004 Pa. Super. 28 - Commonwealth v. Jones · Commonwealth v. Walls

3. “Indeed, identified citizens who report their observations of criminal activity to police are assumed to be trustworthy, in the absence of special circumstances, since a known informant places himself at risk of prosecution for filing a false claim if the tip is untrue, whereas an unknown informant faces no such risk.”

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