State v. Ruggles’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “[Decisively, requiring a culpable mental state regarding the lawfulness of the refused order would severely complicate enforcement of the statute, if not render enforcement impossible. Whether a particular police order is “lawful” is frequently a complex question involving some of the most vexing and intractable issues in constitutional law. For example, a police order such as “Stop!” can be an unlawful seizure of a person under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, depending on whether the order is accompanied by a sufficient show of authority and the officer who issues the order is subsequently found to have lacked reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity was afoot. The inquiry is addressed on a case-by-case basis, there are few if any bright line rules, and there is an almost infinite variety of variables — some of which, such as the officer’s state of mind, could not possibly be known by a defendant. Likewise, an order to disperse might unlawfully interfere with a person’s right of free expression under Article I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution — a determination that can surely confound ordinary citizens and has in fact confounded even judges of this court. It is difficult to imagine a prosecution in which the state could prove that a defendant knew or should have known that a particular order was lawful. We conclude that, clearly, the legislature intended to dispense with a culpable mental state requirement with respect to a defendant’s k”

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