Simpler v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 district · 109 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 112 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The suspected criminal activity itself can furnish the dangerousness justifying a frisk following a Terry stop. Professor La Fave puts it this way: ‘It is undoubtedly true, however, that in some cases the right to conduct a protective search must follow directly from the right to stop the suspect. The Court seems to take this view in Terry, although Justice Harlan’s concurring opinion proceeds to “make explicit what I think is implicit” in the majority opinion, namely, that “the right to frisk must be immediate and automatic if the reason for the stop is, as here, an articulable suspicion of a crime of violence.” Lower courts have been inclined to view the right to frisk as being “automatic” whenever the suspect has been stopped upon the suspicion that he has committed, was committing, or was about to commit a type of crime for which the offender would likely be armed, whether the weapon would be used to actually commit the crime, to escape if the scheme went awry, or for protection against the victim or others involved. This includes such suspected offenses as robbery, burglary, rape, assault with weapons, homicide, and dealing in large quantities of narcotics.’ 3 La Fave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 9.4(a), at 505-06 (1987).” (Emphasis supplied).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 84 Md. App. 192 - Derricott v. State

2. ““But [the officer’s] description of the earlier occasion when he was in [the defendant’s] presence is devoid of any aspect of dangerousness. The record does not describe the carpet knife. The necessary inference is that it is a knife which may lawfully be carried, just as the ordinary pocket knife may lawfully be carried. On the earlier occasion, [the officer], knowing that [the defendant] had the knife in his possession, continued whatever their conversation was within the close confines of a police car. There is no indication that [the defendant] was hostile toward [the officer], or police officers generally, based on the prior contact between the two. There is no evidence of what [the defendant’s] employment was, whether the knife was a job tool, or whether the contact took place at a job site during working hours. There is no evidence indicating that [the defendant] regularly carried the knife.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Anderson v. State

3. “[T]he circuit judge found that it was “normal for the officer to patdown those who were there, his training.... ” The finding echoes Wassmer’s testimony that the patdowns were “a matter of routine caution.” Underlying the testimony and the finding is the notion that any lawful stop justifies a frisk. As we have seen above, that is not the law. Rather, the burden was on the State at the suppression hearing to demonstrate that the seizure fell within one of the well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 146 Md. App. 327 - Graham v. State