Commonwealth v. Miller’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 27 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions — most recently March 2018 · most notably Commonwealth v. White (1977), Commonwealth v. Hason (1982)
2 federal appellate · 27 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Carroll v. United States · Brinegar v. United States · Chimel v. California · Coolidge v. New Hampshire
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““A special officer of the Amherst police department, acting on the possibility that a Ford Econoline van was not properly registered, stopped it as it pulled away from the curb in an Amherst street. On request the operator handed the officer the registration of the van and alighted from the van, at which time the officer observed a ‘clear plastic packet containing a green substance protruding about an inch and a half from the left pocket of the garment that the operator was wearing.’ From his prior experience the officer believed this to be marihuana and thereupon seized it, placing the operator of the van under arrest and simultaneously also placing the other four occupants of the motor vehicle under arrest. He radioed for assistance and two additional officers responded, at which time the four occupants of the van were ordered to alight, being then transported immediately to the Amherst police station a short distance away. ‘At the time of the arrest the officer did not know of any other marijuana that was present in the car nor did he suspect the presence of any other contraband in the car.’ It was dark, there was no lighting inside the van, and it would have been impossible for the officer to have observed a knapsack with protruding marihuana inside the van that he testified to having seen. There was no indication that anyone had been smoking marihuana in the van.” 1974 Mass. Adv. Sh. at 2139-2140, 318 N.E.2d at 910 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Miller v. Hall“observation of contraband in a vehicle or on the person of an occupant of a vehicle provides probable cause for a complete search for more contraband”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the officers did not completely and correctly articulate their grounds,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.