State v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1978
Citation profile
100 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 102 later decisions — most recently March 2025 · most notably State v. Bobo (1988), 165 W. Va. 837 - State v. Moore (1980)
100 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Terry v. Ohio · Katz v. United States · Carroll v. United States · Mapp v. Ohio · Chimel v. California
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 102 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he officer need not be absolutely certain that the individual is armed; the issue is whether a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage““Although Terry and Adams involved intrusions of one’s person, the policy which justified an incidental and limited search of the person likewise permits an officer to conduct a restricted protective search of an area where suspicious conduct is observed.” 56 Ohio St. 2d at 408 .”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“the law does not require that an officer wait until the point of peril to take protective action. It is sufficient that he has a reasonable basis to believe that his safety requires a search or seizure.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.