55 Md. App. 1 - Grant v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

48 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 48 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““An additional preliminary word is also in order about the so-called ‘drug courier profile.’ It is a convenient descriptive term without a great deal of legal significance. Some lament the fact that the Supreme Court has not yet told us whether meeting the so-called ‘drug courier profile’ is an adequate predicate to establish either articulable suspicion for a stop or probable cause for an arrest or search. Of course, the Supreme Court has not told us that and they never will. Indeed, they cannot, for there is no such thing as a single drug courier profile; there are infinite drug courier profiles. The very notion is protean, not monolithic.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 7 Va. App. 93 - Iglesias v. Commonwealth · 84 Md. App. 192 - Derricott v. State

2. ““Even if properly proved, moreover, evidence of good character was of such marginal significance in this case as to be nugatory. Once the physical evidence was admitted, there was no defense to the charges at bar and the appellant mounted no defense. The only possible issue that the jury might have had to decide was whether, in light of the extremely large quantity of cocaine recovered, the appellant was a very large user or a distributor. The issue there is not one of distinguishing good character from bad character but only bad character from worse character. Even if there had been technical error in rejecting the defense evidence (and we hold that there was not), the impact was so insignificant as to be nonexistent.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 78 Md. App. 395 - DeLuca v. State

3. ““The only legal significance to this umbrella term called ‘the profile’ is that the expertise of the police will be legitimately taken into consideration when we assess the significance of observations that might to the untrained layman seem completely ambiguous. The establishment of the profile by the Drug Enforcement Agency simply gives us the benefit of the collective expertise of many investigators working nationwide in this sensitive area of law enforcement. The special significance that a given observation might have to a trained and experienced policeman could always be established on a case-by-case basis, even if the ‘profile’ did not exist.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 84 Md. App. 192 - Derricott v. State