2003 Pa. Super. 358 - Commonwealth v. Wood’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[An LCE officer] testified that, from the officers’ “experience,” and based solely on whether a bar patron “looked to be under the age of 21,” the officers would ask the bar patron for identification, a process known as carding. When the officers have found “four, five, six” underage patrons, they separate all the patrons under 21 in a separate area of the bar. Any patron over the age of 21 is ordered to leave the bar. [Arresting officer] acknowledged that, on this occasion, patrons over 21 were “free to leave” the bar. The conclusion is inescapable that persons in the bar who were carded and could not prove they were over 21 were not “free to leave.” As to the sequence by which the officers proceeded with their investigation, [arresting officer] testified that first, the officers would determine age, and then, and only then, were the officers “going to determine whether or not they had been drinking alcohol.” On cross-examination, [arresting officer] again confirmed that it was only after the “over 21’s” had been separated from the “under 21’s” that the officers proceeded to determine whether or not the “under 21’s” had been drinking. During the raid, either state or city police officers blocked the doorway and all exits until identification could be established. The identity of the officers blocking egress was clear to all in the bar. [Arresting officer] testified that any patron “youthful in appearance” would have been prevented from leaving, even if the patron expressed a”

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