State v. Blassingame’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

50 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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A police officer may stop and briefly detain and question a person for investigative purposes, without treading upon his Fourth Amendment rights, when the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts, short of probable cause for arrest, that the person is involved in criminal activity.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Williams · State v. Taylor

2. ““In dealing with probable cause ... as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.” “And in determining whether the officer acted reasonably ... due weight must be given, not to his inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch,’ but to the specific reasonable inferences which he is entitled to draw from facts in light of his experience.” Mere suspicions of the officer will not support a finding of probable cause. ... The “experience of a police officer is a factor to be considered in the determination of probable cause, ... but the relevance of the suspect’s conduct should be sufficiently articulable that its import can be understood by the average reasonably prudent person.””

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

3. “The term `reasonable suspicion' requires a particularized and objective basis that would lead one to suspect another of criminal activity.”

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