State v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

55 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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In determining the correctness of a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence claimed to be constitutionally inadmissible, an appellate court will uphold the trial court’s findings of fact unless those findings are clearly erroneous. In reviewing a trial court’s findings on a suppression motion, an appellate court recognizes the trial court as the “trier of fact” and takes into consideration that the trial court has observed witnesses testifying regarding such motion.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Martin · State v. Reimers

2. ““There are two components to relevant evidence: materiality and probative value. Materiality looks to the relation between the propositions for which the evidence is offered and the issues in the case. If the evidence is offered to help prove a proposition which is not a matter in issue, the evidence is immaterial. What is ‘in issue,’ that is, within the range of the litigated controversy, is determined mainly by the pleadings, read in the light of the rules of pleading and controlled by the substantive law____ “The second aspect of relevance is probative value, the tendency of evidence to establish the proposition that it is offered to prove.“[T]he function of the doctrine of relevance is to require that there be some rational connection between the evidence offered by a litigant and the legal rule on which he claims a right to recover. . . . ‘Relevancy ... exists only as a relation between an item of evidence and a matter properly provable in the case.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Salamon

3. ““Reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause. Adams v. Williams [ 407 U.S. 143 , 92 S. Ct. 1921 , 32 L. Ed. 2d 612 (1972)] demonstrates as much.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Chavez