State v. Hanson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The problem with the court of appeals' decision is that it in effect says that whenever an officer turns on the squad car's flashing red lights before getting out and approaching an already stopped car, the officer turns the encounter into a seizure. It may be that in many fact situations the officer's use of the flashing lights likely would signal to a reasonable person that the officer is attempting to seize the person for investigative purposes. In this case, however, under all the facts, the officer's conduct would not have communicated to a reasonable person in these physical circumstances that the officer was attempting to seize the person. A reasonable person would have assumed that the officer was not doing anything other than checking to see what was going on and to offer help if needed. A reasonable person in such a situation would not be surprised at the use of the flashing lights. It was dark out and the cars were on the shoulder of the highway far from any town. A reasonable person would know that while flashing lights may be used as a show of authority, they also serve other purposes, including warning oncoming motorists in such a situation to be careful.”

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