Earls v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"Can a search be justified as lawful on the basis of consent when that `consent' has been given only after the official conducting the search has asserted that he possesses a warrant? The Bumper opinion holds, `... that there can be no consent under such circumstances * * * (because) the situation is instinct with coercion—albeit colorably lawful coercion. Where there is coercion there cannot be consent.' The defendant relies on this language to support the proposition that consent can never be given under the situation involved in this case. The State argues that the Bumper opinion does not establish any such absolute prohibition. Rather, it contends that such a holding, if allowed to stand, `would invalidate the well-established rule . . that the voluntariness of a consent to search is a question of fact to be decided in light of the attendant circumstances by the trier of fact,' and relies on the following excerpt from the Bumper opinion in support of its contention: `When a prosecutor seeks to rely upon consent to justify the lawfulness of a search, he has the burden of proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given. This burden cannot be discharged by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority.'”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Byars v. State · 408 Pa. Super. 188 - Commonwealth v. Bagley

2. “"We believe that the Bumper case stands for the proposition that it is possible to give valid consent to search even after the existence of the warrant is made known, but the State must show by clear and convincing evidence that the consent is not based upon the warrant and was not coerced by other factors. It is conceivable that a person could give a voluntary and uncoerced consent to search even though he had been informed that the officers had a search warrant, but the State would bear the burden of showing that the consent was sufficiently independent of the warrant to remove the taint of its coercive nature. "Having decided that the Bumper case concerns itself with the quantum of proof brought forth by the prosecution, we must now determine the standard for meeting the burden of proof and the factors that must be considered in its evaluation. The sole indication given in the Bumper case is that the burden cannot be discharged by showing no more than acquiescence to a claim of lawful authority. "In the Bumper case the court emphasized that the party to whom the warrant was presented was `a 66-year old Negro widow, in a house located in a rural area at the end of an isolated mile-long dirt road.' Further, there were `four white law enforcement officers—the county sheriff, two of his deputies, and a state investigator—'. The court seems to imply that age, intelligence, socio-economic class, and environment are factors to be considered in determining whether consent was give”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Byars v. State

3. “"Armed with the search warrant, Sheriff Russell and five other officers went to the home of the defendant. The defendant was not under arrest. The Sheriff handed him a copy of the warrant and began reading the original to him. As the Sheriff was reading, the defendant threw his copy to the ground and said: `You needn't to have brought a search warrant. You gentlemen are welcome to search anywhere on my premises you want to search and take anything you find.' Following this the officers searched the defendant's home and took from it a torn love letter to `Marsha'; and in his truck they found a number of tools, the most important of which was a pair of wire cutters subsequently determined by the laboratories of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to be those that had been used to sever a barbed wire fence surrounding the pond where the body of the deceased was found."”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Byars v. State