487 So. 2d 286 - Scurlock v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 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 5 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Courts have used a variety of terms to capture the elusive concept of what cause is sufficient to authorize the police to stop a person. Terms like `articulable reasons' and `founded suspicion' are not self-defining; they fall short of providing clear guidance dispositive of the myriad factual situations that arise. But the essence of all that has been written is that the totality of the circumstances— the whole picture—must be taken into account. Based upon that whole picture the detaining officers must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. [Citations omitted.] "The idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion contains two elements, each of which must be present before a stop is permissible. First, the assessment must be based upon all of the circumstances. The analysis proceeds with various objective observations, information from police reports, if such are available, and consideration of the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of law breakers. From these data, a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions—inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person. "The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same— and”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 568 So. 2d 421 - Harris v. State

2. “stop any person abroad in a public place whom he reasonably suspects is committing, has committed or is about to commit a felony or other public offense and [to] demand of him, his name, address and explanation of his actions.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 568 So. 2d 421 - Harris v. State