United States of v. Richard Nathaniel Mattaroloorder an’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 2 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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “He described the object as a couple of inches long and about an inch in circumference. To determine if it might be a small pocket knife he closed his thumb and forefinger around it to see whether it was hard, suggesting a possible knife. Instead of anything hard he felt little chunks in plastic bags which he immediately recognized as drugs. He specifically denied that he moved his finger and thumb back and forth so as to manipulate the package to help identify the contents as drugs.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 407 F. Supp. 2d 703 - United States v. Yamba

2. “[t]he possibility of a surprise attack at close quarters with even a small knife presents danger sufficient to justify an officer in taking reasonable protective measures, and such a precautionary squeeze is well within the scope of Terry . Had the officer continued to manipulate the object beyond what was necessary to ascertain that it posed no threat, he would have run afoul of [Dickerson ].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 153 F. Supp. 2d 948 - United States v. Lemons