Sullivan v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
15 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently August 2018
15 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 Katz v. United States · Coolidge v. New Hampshire · Sedillo v. United States · Thomas v. State · Howard v. State
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“"We have, however, recognized that objects which are not inherently suspicious can become so under certain circumstances. Thus, the State can show that the seizing officer was aware, at the time of the seizure, that contraband drugs are commonly packaged in a particular manner. Boyd v. State, 621 S.W.2d 616 (Tex. Cr.App.1981); Brown v. State, 617 S.W.2d 196 (Tex.Cr.App.1981); DeLao v. State, 550 S.W.2d 289 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). This specialized knowledge, in combination with suspicious facts and circumstances, can sustain the State's burden of proof. "In this case the State did not show that Officer Roehling had such specialized knowledge. He did state, `[U]pon seeing it in my personal and professional opinion I thought it may possibly be some kind of narcotic.' This is no more than a conclusion. It falls far short of the State's burden to show why the conclusion was reasonable at the time of the seizure. "Furthermore, the record does not demonstrate any suspicious facts or circumstances surrounding the seizure of the pouch." (Emphasis supplied.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Gonzales v. State“not an object that is inherently dangerous, contraband, or stolen goods”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Winkles v. State
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.