26 Ark. App. 45 - Coffman v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 47 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 49 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common-sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same — and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library scholars, but as understood by those versed in law enforcement [(emphasis in Coffman)]. To a trained police officer, the fact that a motorist attempted to avoid the roadblock in this case would surely excite a reasonable suspicion that, at the very least, the motorist was drunk, driving a stolen vehicle, did not have a valid driver’s license, or had some car light defect. These violations of the law would meet A.R.Cr.P. Rule 3.1 requirements since they involve danger of injury to other motorists. Therefore, we do not agree that the stop of appellant’s vehicle was unlawful; and after he was stopped, the appellant’s intoxicated condition was apparent and the officers had obvious probable cause to arrest him.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Snyder v. State · 412 Pa. Super. 100 - Commonwealth v. Metz

2. “[W]e do not agree with appellant’s contention that the stop of his vehicle was unconstitutional or unlawful. We agree with the appellee that the question is whether the record will support a finding that the police officer could have “possessed the requisite reasonable suspicion necessary to effectuate a constitutionally permissible investigatory stop.” We find that the record will support such a finding. There is evidence from which it could be found that the appellant was approaching a roadblock made clearly visible by the presence of police vehicles with flashing blue lights; that the appellant attempted to avoid the roadblock; and that the trained police officers who were conducting the roadblock could reasonably suspect that one who attempted to avoid this roadblock was trying to hide some type of unlawful activity.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Giessinger · 412 Pa. Super. 100 - Commonwealth v. Metz