People v. De Bour’s Empirical Analysis
1976
Citation profile
10 federal appellate · 68 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 160 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2019 · most notably Dunaway v. New York (1979), County Court of Ulster Cty. v. Allen (1979)
10 federal appellate · 68 state decisions — followed in 15 states
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.
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 160 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This approach is hardly reasonable and if adopted would probably lead to an overcompensation in the form of a dilution of the standards embracing reasonable suspicion or probable cause. “The history of the use, and not infrequent abuse, of the power to arrest cautions that a relaxation of the fundamental requirements of probable cause would ‘leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officers’ whim or caprice’” (Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 479 , 83 S.Ct. 407, 413 , 9 L.Ed.2d 441 ; Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98 , 80 S.Ct. 168 , 4 L.Ed.2d 134 ). Common sense and a firm grasp of the practicalities involved compel us to reject an all or nothing approach. The crucial factor is whether or not the police behavior can be characterized as reasonable which, in terms of accepted standards, requires a balancing of the interests involved in the police inquiry. [Id., 40 N.Y.2d at 217 , 386 N.Y.S.2d at 381 , 352 N.E.2d at 568 (citations omitted).]”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage“`* * * couched in vague and general terms' (black man in red shirt) * * *”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“"Before the police may stop a person pursuant to the common-law right to inquire there must exist at that moment a founded suspicion that criminal activity is present. The police may not justify a stop by a subsequently acquired suspicion resulting from the stop. This reasoning is the same which refuses to validate a search by what it produces. To validate this stop under the common-law power to inquire, we must examine the knowledge possessed at that moment and any reasonable inferences. Although this analysis involves a less stringent degree of belief than probable cause, it should be approached in the same manner so as to permit the use of familiar signposts as points of reference" ( 40 N.Y.2d at 215-16 [ 386 N.Y.S.2d 375 , 352 N.E.2d 562 ] [citations omitted] ).”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Perez
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.