Wold v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In a situation such as [a recently committed robbery], ... the police must have some authority to freeze the situation. Even if the circumstances are such that no one person can be singled out as the probable offender, the police must sometimes be allowed to take some action intermediate to that of arrest and nonseizure scrutiny. This is not to suggest a "dragnet approach,” resulting in the temporary seizure of a large number of persons within the range of possible flight of the robber, is either permissible or desirable. What are needed and appropriate in this context are "selective investigative procedures" whereby seizures are made only of those as to whom there exists a “reasonable possibility" of their being the robber.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williamson v. United States

2. “(1) the particularity of the description of the offender or the vehicle in which he fled; (2) the size of the area in which the offender might be found, as indicated by such facts as the elapsed time since the crime occurred; (3) the number of persons about in that area; (4) the known or probable direction of the offender’s flight; (5) observed activity by the particular person stopped; and (6) knowledge or suspicion that the person or vehicle stopped has been involved in other criminality of the type presently under investigation.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. City of Fargo v. Ovind

3. “[ o]ur court, as well as courts of other states, have recognized that in order to “freeze” the situation, the stop of a person present at the scene of a recently committed crime of violence may be permissible without trampling on the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure_ Especially is such a stop deemed permissible where only a limited number of persons are present at the scene of a violent crime.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Williamson v. United States