Commonwealth v. Hill’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 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 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"The specific facts on which the police based their stop of the defendant have been described as follows: '(1) a vehicle pulled up and an interaction occurred between someone in the vehicle and someone [in the parking lot], who apparently retrieved something before concluding the interaction with the vehicle's occupant; (2) [the interaction occurred] in a place known by the police officer[s] as a place of high incidence of drug traffic; and (3) [the interaction was] witnessed by an experienced officer, who had made numerous drug arrests [although not necessarily in the neighborhood] and considered the event as [suggesting] a drug sale.' Commonwealth v. Kennedy , 426 Mass. [703], 708 [ 690 N.E.2d 436 (1998) ]. Moreover, 'the quickness of the interaction between [the other party and the defendant] reasonably could be interpreted by the officer as suspicious conduct, similar to the suspicious conduct of the "furtive" transaction observed in [ Commonwealth v. Santaliz , 413 Mass. 238 , 241, 596 N.E.2d 337 (1992) ].' Commonwealth v. Kennedy , supra at 708-709 [ 690 N.E.2d 436 ]. We are mindful that in Kennedy the seller had been arrested previously for narcotics sales and was the subject of complaints from people in the neighborhood, id . at 704 [ 690 N.E.2d 436 ] ; that in Santaliz , there was an obvious exchange of an object and money, supra at 240 [ 596 N.E.2d 337 ] ; and that in both Kennedy and Santaliz the officers had had considerable experience with drug transactions in th”

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

2. “The specific facts on which the police based their stop of the defendant have been described as follows: '(1) a vehicle pulled up and an interaction occurred between someone in the vehicle and someone [in the parking lot], who apparently retrieved something before concluding the interaction with the vehicle's occupant; (2) [the interaction occurred] in a place known by the police officer[s] as a place of high incidence of drug traffic; and (3) [the interaction was] witnessed by an experienced officer, who had made numerous drug arrests [although not necessarily in the neighborhood] and considered the event as [suggesting] a drug sale.' Commonwealth v. Kennedy , 426 Mass. [703], 708 [ 690 N.E.2d 436 (1998) ]. Moreover, 'the quickness of the interaction between [the other party and the defendant] reasonably could be interpreted by the officer as suspicious conduct, similar to the suspicious conduct of the "furtive”

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