301 Ga. App. 198 - Thomas v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In a first-tier encounter, police officers may approach citizens, ask for identification, and freely question the citizen without any basis or belief that the citizen is involved in criminal activity, as long as the officers do not detain the citizen or create the impression that the citizen may not leave. There is no threshold requirement and indeed the individual may refuse to answer or ignore the request and go on his way if he chooses, for this does not amount to any type of restraint and is not encompassed by the Fourth Amendment. So long as a reasonable person would feel free to disregard the police and go about his business, the encounter is consensual and no reasonable suspicion is required.”

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

2. “First-tier encounters are consensual communications between police and citizens and involve no coercion or detention; second-tier encounters, which must be supported by reasonable suspicion, are brief stops done for the purpose of investigating suspected criminal activity; and third-tier encounters are actual or de facto arrests and, accordingly, must be supported by probable cause.”

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

3. “[t]he officer's action must be justified by specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion, and the officer must have some basis from which the court can determine that the detention was neither arbitrary nor harassing.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 314 Ga. App. 678 - In Re Jb