52 N.C. App. 492 - State v. Hall’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “To fix a definite time within which officers must act to seize a vehicle after they have seen an illegal drug transaction might seriously hinder the effectiveness of large scale undercover drug investigations in which the officers are trying to find the big drug dealers through various smaller operators. If a vehicle must be seized immediately, or very soon after the commission of a crime, it is likely that the detective’s cover would be destroyed, resulting in increased danger to that officer if he continues to work in the investigation or, if he must then drop out of the operation, the waste of his special efforts, requiring much training and planning, whereby he was enabled to make effective contact with those involved in illegal drug trafficking. Thus, though a situation may arise where the length of time, elapsing between the commission of a crime and the later issuance of an order of seizure, is too unreasonable to be sustained, it suffices to say that we are not confronted with such a case here because the process was served within a month after the officer saw the violation occur.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 56 Md. App. 101 - Jones v. State

2. “swallow up the general rule.... To prevent inventories from becoming a convenient method to bypass the preference of the Fourth Amendment for a warrant and thereby permit officers to search freely for evidence in impounded vehicles, the reasonableness of each inventory search must be strictly construed.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 349 N.J. Super. 352 - State v. One 1994 Ford Thunderbird

3. “Cooper does not, however, stand for the proposition that law enforcement officials have a `blank check' under the Fourth Amendment to conduct warrantless searches of cars lawfully impounded under forfeiture statutes for drug violations, without any limitation as to their scope and purpose.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 349 N.J. Super. 352 - State v. One 1994 Ford Thunderbird