Commonwealth v. Pakacki’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In determining whether an encounter with the police is custodial, “[t]he standard ... is an objective one, with due consideration given to the reasonable impression conveyed to the person interrogated rather than the strictly subjective view of the troopers or the person being seized ...” and “must be determined with reference to the totality of the circumstances.” Commonwealth v. Edmiston, 535 Pa. 210, 634 A.2d 1078, 1085-86 (1993). Miranda warnings are required only when a suspect is in custody. Commonwealth v. Ford, 539 Pa. 85 , 650 A.2d 433, 439 (1994). As this Court has noted: A person is in custody for Miranda purposes only when he “is physically denied his freedom of action in any significant way or is placed in a situation in which he reasonably believes that his freedom of action or movement is restricted by the interrogation.” Commonwealth v. Johnson, 556 Pa. 216 , 727 A.2d 1089, 1100 (1999). The U.S. Supreme Court has elaborated that, in determining whether an individual was in custody, the “ultimate inquiry is ... whether there [was] a ‘formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement’ of the degree associated with a formal arrest.” Stansbury v. California, 511 U.S. 318, 322 , 114 S.Ct. 1526 , 128 L.Ed.2d 293 (1994). Commonwealth v. Boczkowski, 577 Pa. 421 , 846 A.2d 75, 90 (2004) (footnote and parallel citations omitted).”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Commonwealth v. Sherwood

2. “Under the plain feel doctrine, a police officer may seize non-threatening contraband detected through the officer’s sense of touch during a Terry frisk if the officer is lawfully in a position to detect the presence of contraband, the incriminating nature of the contraband is immediately apparent from its tactile impression and the officer has a lawful right of access to the object. [T]he plain feel doctrine is only applicable where the officer conducting the frisk feels an object whose mass or contour makes its criminal character immediately apparent. Immediately apparent means that the officer readily perceives, without further exploration or searching, that what he is feeling is contraband. If, after feeling the object, the officer lacks probable cause to believe that the object is contraband without conducting some further search, the immediately apparent requirement has not been met and the plain feel doctrine cannot justify the seizure of the object.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2007 Pa. Super. 372 - Commonwealth v. Thompson

3. “The detention to which appellee [the pedestrian] was subjected was not so coercive as to constitute the functional equivalent of an arrest. Here, [the arresting officer] had information that appellee may have been involved in a shooting, and when he stopped appellee, he understandably stated that he was going to frisk him for weapons as a safety measure. This interaction was the classic scenario contemplated by Terry [, supra,] and did not constitute custody; after the frisk and a ‘moderate number of questions’ about the shooting, appellee would have been free to leave, had the trooper not smelled marijuana and felt the pipe. This was not the functional equivalent of an arrest.... Thus, we hold appellee was not in custody so as to require Miranda warnings before the officer asked him about the object in his pocket.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 2006 Pa. Super. 217 - Commonwealth v. Clinton