United States v. Wright’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 3 district · 9 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 23 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On the evening of November 8, 2004, a caravan of four unmarked police cars was patrolling in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The cars were Crown Victorias, a model widely associated with police departments. The plainclothes officers in the caravan were members of the Boston Police Department Youth Violence Task Force. At about 7:45 p.m., the caravan was driving north on Blue Hill Avenue and slowed down as the lead car passed a vehicle that had just pulled over in front of a mini-mart at 1216 Blue Hill Avenue. The parked car was partially blocking one of two driveway entrances to the mini-mart parking lot. Officer Brown, who was seated in the lead car’s front passenger seat, looked to his right as they passed the parked vehicle and observed three people, one of whom he recognized as Omar Edwards, a neighborhood resident. He did not recognize the driver or the passenger seated in the back seat of the parked car. Immediately after passing this parked vehicle, Officer Brown’s car pulled over to the right parking lane, in front of the parked car. The rest of the caravan came to a stop in the right travel lane to the rear of the parked car. The front passenger of the second police car, Officer Bordley, then observed the back seat passenger of the parked car, later identified as appellant, lean forward as though he was looking at the Crown Victoria that had just pulled over in front of his car. Wright then exited his car, on the passenger side, and began to run southward down Blue Hill A”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Wright

2. “[t]he level of criminal activity would be considered high for that area. Numerous arrests for drug offenses, violent crimes, violent assaults, assaults and batteries, firearms arrests, things of that nature.” To counter this testimony, Wright offered into evidence incident reports for August 2004 (the most recent prior to the stop) that showed that the area where the stop occurred was not designated a”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Wright

3. “[t]hat area of Blue Hill Avenue, as well as that corridor, is a very high crime area consisting of firearm violence, drug activity, street robberies, breaking and enterings, all type of street crimes actually.” Officer Celester testified that the area is”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Wright