Commonwealth v. Pride’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, commonsense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him, including the “veracity” and “basis of knowledge” of persons supplying hearsay information, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place. And the duty of a reviewing court is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a “substantial basis for ... concluding]” that probable cause existed.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Blane v. Commonwealth · Howard v. Commonwealth

2. “Minks’s suppression motion did not allege that the deputy who procured the warrant purposefully or recklessly included false statements in or omitted material facts from his affidavit. Instead, Minks maintained that the alleged “independent investigation” consisted of nothing more than having information from confidential informants, whose reliability was not attested to, and that the deputy’s “first-hand observations while inside the trailer earlier in the day” did not include any mention of evidence of a meth lab. In essence, Minks’s motion appears to be a straightforward challenge to the affidavit as insufficient within its four corners to provide probable cause to search. Under those circumstances, an evidentiary hearing is not really necessary because the trial judge is simply being asked to review the issuing magistrate’s probable cause determination using a “totality of the circumstances” assessment.... Simply put, this was not one of those situations where an evidentiary hearing was required, the sole issue raised by the suppression motion being whether the facts presented were sufficient to establish probable cause. As a reviewing court, we turn our attention to whether there was a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Rawls v. Commonwealth

3. “[A]fter-the-fact scrutiny by courts of the sufficiency of an affidavit [offered to establish probable cause] should not take the form of de novo review.... [T]he traditional standard for review of an issuing magistrate’s probable cause determination has been that so long as the magistrate had a ‘substantial basis for ... concluding]’ that a search would uncover evidence of wrongdoing, the Fourth Amendment requires no more.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Lemons