United States v. Couch’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “First, we must examine the capacity in which the off-duty police officer was functioning when the officer initially confronted the situation and second, we must examine the manner in which he or she conducted himself or herself from that point forward.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State of Iowa v. Christopher D. Brown · Armstrong v. State

2. ““The Court also concludes that [the off-duty officers] were not acting as agents or instruments of the Government at the time of the lease inspection. Although it appears that the Government possessed some knowledge of the inspections and the suspicion of drug activity, [the off-duty officers] both stated that their intention was to perform their duties as [public housing authority] representatives, which constitutes a legitimate independent motivation for conducting an inspection or search. [Citations omitted.]” 378 F. Supp. 2d at 58 .”

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

3. “[government] involvement [in a search] is not measured by the primary occupation of the actor, but by the Capacity [sic] in which he acts at the time in question”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 2008 WI App 178 - State v. Cole