State v. Prouse’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 1 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a random stop of a motorist in the absence of specific articulable facts which justify the stop by indicating a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the law has occurred is constitutionally impermissible and violative of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Delaware v. Prouse · 945 So. 2d 372 - McLendon v. State

2. “"We recognize the legitimate state interest in enforcing licensing and registration laws, and note that in fact situations similar to that of the present case other courts have reached the conclusion that the state interests outweigh the interests of the individual.... However, the factor which in our opinion makes random stops, absent justifying facts, unreasonable is the inherent arbitrariness of the procedure. The flaw in the process is that absolute discretion and authority is conferred upon the police to detain whomever they desire for whatever reason on the pretense of a documents check stop. Thus an officer prejudiced against any visibly identifiable group could stop a disproportionate number of persons in the group. No discrimination has been shown in the stop under examination here, but the evil of the possibility of discriminatory stops does exist. If we were to accept the State's position, discriminatory stopping procedures could be practiced with little or no chance for judicial review. "It has been asserted that a rigid invalidity rule as we adopt here is too broad, and that only where actual discriminatory intent is shown to have motivated the stopping officer, or where a license check is used as a pretext to investigate unrelated crime, should the random stop be illegal.... However, burdening a criminal defendant with the task of proving that a police officer acted with an illegal subjective intent would as a practical matter emasculate any limited rule concern”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Kretchmar · City of Overland Park v. Sandy

3. “[t]he issue of the legal validity of systematic, roadblock-type stops of a number of vehicles for license and vehicle registration check is not now before the Court,”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Delaware v. Prouse · 945 So. 2d 372 - McLendon v. State