Commonwealth v. Pinto’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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. “Reasonable suspicion exists when an officer, based on specific, articulable facts and reasonable inferences therefrom, in light of the officer's experience, has reasonable grounds to suspect 'a person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime' (citation omitted).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Resende

2. “'[b]ecause the standard is reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause, a less rigorous showing in each of these areas is permissible' ... [and] independent police corroboration may 'make up for deficiencies in one or both of these factors.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 93 Mass. App. Ct. 6 - Commonwealth v. Gonzalez

3. “Corroboration of purely innocent details that are observable by any bystander, such as the description of a vehicle and its location, provides only limited enhancement to the reasonable suspicion determination.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Barreto