3 So. 3d 285 - Williams v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. ““Under settled Alabama law, a ‘search’ involves probing into secret places for that which is hidden, and implies a forcible dispossession of property of one by exploratory acts. In this case, police merely had Williams enter a room. When the room was darkened and an ultraviolet light was turned on, a fluorescent pattern appeared on Williams’s face. Williams was not asked to bare any part of his body that was not already open to public view. Police did not have to touch his body in an attempt to discover whether a fluorescent pattern would emerge. It involved no personal indignities or humiliations. We fail to see that having one’s photograph made while under an ultraviolet light is any more or less intrusive than having a photograph taken under any other circumstances. See, e.g., Nguyen . Therefore, we hold that law enforcement’s use of ultraviolet light, without more, to determine whether a suspect has come in contact with a fluorescent substance does not constitute a search.””

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

2. ““ ‘In the context of the Fourth Amendment, “a ‘search’ implies probing into secret places for that which is hidden [and] implies force, actual or constructive, or a forceable dispossession of property of one by exploratory acts.” Cunningham, v. State, 52 Ala.App. 440 , 293 So.2d 865 (1974); Knox v. State, 50 Ala.App. 494 , 280 So.2d 200 (1973).’ Vogel v. State, 426 So.2d 863, 872 (Ala.Crim.App.1980). Additionally, this court has held that “ ‘[I]n general, the mere observation of a person’s physical characteristics does not constitute a Fourth Amendment search. See Nguyen v. State, 547 So.2d 582, 585 (Ala.Crim.App.1988). ““‘Moreover, it is no search to ‘record’ those characteristics, in effect, by taking a picture of the individual.” ’ ” Nguyen v. State, 547 So.2d at 585 , quoting LaFave, Search and Seizure, § 2.6(a) (1987).’ “Powell v. State, 796 So.2d 404, 428-29 (Ala.Crim.App.1999).””

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