State v. Spears’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The inevitable discovery doctrine, one exception to the exclusionary rule, states that if the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means, the information is admissible despite the fact it was illegally obtained.”

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

2. “If the * government can prove that the evidence would have been obtained inevitably and, therefore, would have been admitted regardless of any overreaching by the police, there is no rational basis to keep that evidence from the jury in order to ensure the fairness of the trial proceedings.”

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

3. “The task of the issuing magistrate is simply to make a practical, common sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him ... there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.”

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