28 Va. App. 20 - Welshman v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1998
Citation profile
62 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 62 later decisions — most recently November 2018 · most notably 43 Va. App. 263 - Emerson v. Commonwealth (2004), 40 Va. App. 539 - Craddock v. Commonwealth (2003)
62 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Ornelas v. United States · Delaware v. Prouse · United States v. Sokolow · United States v. Brignoni-Ponce
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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Because direct proof of intent [to distribute drugs] is often impossible, it must be shown by circumstantial evidence.” Servis v. Commonwealth, 6 Va.App. 507, 524 , 371 S.E.2d 156, 165 (1988). Such evidence may include the quantity of drugs and cash possessed and whether appellant used drugs. Possession of a large sum of money, especially in small denominations, and the absence of any paraphernalia suggestive of personal use, also are regularly recognized as factors indicating an intent to distribute.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““The [F]ourth [A]mendment does not proscribe all seizures, only those that are ‘unreasonable.’. Whether a seizure is unreasonable is determined by balancing the individual’s right to be free from arbitrary government intrusions against society’s countervailing interest in preventing or detecting crime and in protecting its law enforcement officers.” The validity of a seizure “ ‘turns on an objective assessment of the officer’s actions in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him at the time,’ and not on the officer’s actual state of mind at the time the challenged action was taken.” Ordinarily, in the absence of consent, even a brief detention must be based on at least a reasonable, articulable suspicion the person seized is engaged in criminal activity. However, as the United States Supreme Court has held, the absence of probable cause or reasonable suspicion of criminal activity does not necessarily render a detention unlawful.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“is the interest in minimizing the risk of harm to the officers ____[T]he execution of a warrant to search for narcotics is the kind of transaction that may give rise to sudden violence or frantic efforts to conceal or destroy evidence. The risk of harm to both the police and the occupants is minimized if the officers routinely exercise unquestioned command of the situation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.