State v. Murray’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “the hypothetical ‘Reasonable person” carries a heavy, and at times perhaps even an intellectually debatable undue burden, in ensuring his or her individual liberties. In interpreting the scope of the Fourth Amendment, courts appear to have steadily increased expectations that the ‘Reasonable person” is one who not only knows the full extent of his rights, but zealously protects them to the point that he will not hesitate to confront authority and demand the return of identification so that he may effect his right to walk away. Accordingly, one may reasonably inquire whether the ‘Reasonable person” standard has in reality become the ‘Reasonable person trained in the law” standard. Indeed, if reasonable members of the public were asked whether they believed that they could terminate an encounter with a law enforcement officer by simply insisting that the officer return their license or identification, we suggest most would respond in the negative. It is not unreasonable to think that only those versed in search and seizure law may fully understand that the ability of an officer to conduct an identification check is totally contingent upon the civilian’s consent to the encounter where no reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing exists.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
   e.g. State v. Spaulding