367 Pa. Super. 214 - Commonwealth v. Hurst’s Empirical Analysis
1987
Citation profile
38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently March 2026 · most notably 136 Pa. Commw. 629 - WURTH BY WURTH v. City of Philadelphia (1990), 419 Pa. Super. 541 - Johnson v. Harris (1992)
38 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 225 Cal. App. 2d 91 - People v. Martin · Commonwealth v. Eshelman · 353 Pa. Super. 321 - Commonwealth v. Eliason · 293 Pa. Super. 381 - Commonwealth v. Picker · 296 Pa. Super. 507 - Commonwealth v. Stahl
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 38 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“In Commonwealth v. Eshelman, 477 Pa. 93, 383 A.2d 838 (1978), our Supreme Court considered the validity of certain actions taken by an off-duty police officer. In that case, an off-duty policeman was running his dogs across the appel Iant’s grandmother’s property without permission. Near the edge of a wooded area the officer noticed an old automobile. He peered through its windows and observed what he suspected to be packages of marijuana being dried. The officer reached inside of the car, extracted one of the unopened packages, and took it to the police station. The parcel was opened and its contents examined; the package indeed contained marijuana. Based on this discovery, a warrant was obtained to search the automobile. During a suppression hearing, it was determined that the off-duty policeman was not acting under the direction of any sovereign or police authority. Therefore, the officer’s actions did not constitute an unlawful search and seizure conducted under unlawful authority. The suppression hearing judge held that the officer’s search and seizure might have been characterized as a civil trespass by a private citizen. Id. at 383 A.2d at 839-840 . Our Supreme Court disagreed and found that the officer, despite being off-duty, was “acting as a police officer when he removed the package and turned it over to the police.” Further, it was held that the policeman’s conduct was totally inconsistent with the theory that he was merely a private citizen. Id. at 383 A.2d at 84”
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.