William Ralph v. Vernon L. Pepersack, Warden, Maryland State Penitentiary’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

56 federal appellate · 12 district · 19 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 99 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The existence of ‘probable cause’ is to be determined by the application of a practical, not a technical, standard. * * * Probable cause is something more than mere suspicion and something less than evidence which would justify a conviction. The essence of all definitions of probable cause for arrest is reasonable ground for belief that a crime has been committed and that the person arrested committed it. * * * However, in determining the existence of probable cause a standard is much more easily stated than applied. No single litmus-paper test will provide the answer when probable cause is at issue; we look instead to the totality of the circumstances. And the pertinent circumstances are those of the moment, the actual ones, the ones that confronted the arresting officers. * * * Our inquiry is whether their action was that of reasonable and prudent police officers in view of the circumstances as they appeared at the time of arrest.””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Pigg v. United States · Shorey v. Warden

2. “* * * * * * "* * * To make constitutional questions turn on the term chosen by police officers to describe their activity — officers who are accustomed to the vernacular of the police station and unschooled in the accepted constitutional vocabulary — is to engage in a futile and unwarranted exercise in semantics. Here, it appears that Ralph was arrested because his description and that of his car matched that of the wanted perpetrator of the Montgomery County crimes of which the officers had been informed only a short time before. We have held that there was probable cause for his arrest for those crimes. We think untenable the proposition that an arrest based on probable cause becomes unconstitutional because described by an officer as an arrest for `investigation.' * * *" (Emphasis supplied) * * * * * *”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Mills v. Wainwright · Chippas v. State

3. “* * * * * * "At the trial in the case at bar, in an answer to the question, `And for what offense were they being arrested at that time?', the officer testified, `Investigation of housebreaking.' Of course there is no such crime as `Investigation'. But this description given by the officer does not go to the question of probable cause. The question is not what name the officer attached to his action; it is whether, in the situation in which he found himself, he had reasonable ground to believe a felony had been committed and that the men in the car had committed it. The situation was a sudden, unanticipated development. Suppose the officer had arrested these men upon belief that they had committed a housebreaking, but the legal lights in charge of preparing indictments had decided the offense was robbery; or suppose later information had disclosed a murder. Would the arrest have been invalid? Of course not. So to hold would make a mockery of the Supreme Court's admonition to us that probable cause is a matter of practicalities, not of technicalities." * * * * * * "The sum total of the reams that have been written on the subject is that a peace officer may arrest without a warrant when he has reasonable grounds, in light of the circumstances of the moment as viewed through his eyes, for belief that a felony has been committed and that the person before him committed it. We require police officers to be reasonable; we too must be reasonable." (Emphasis added) * * * * * *”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 4 Md. App. 160 - Simms v. State · Chippas v. State