Butler v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Although the tip is detailed in its description of appellant's clothing, his location and the location of the contraband on his person, and although the CI's reliability is fairly well established, the "source" of the CI's knowledge is lacking. There is no record evidence indicating the CI personally observed the cocaine or how he came to know appellant had the contraband. Thus, except for the detail about the cocaine wrapped in bills in his pants pocket, the tip offered nothing more than innocent details of identification that were readily observable by the public at large. Even if we were to find the CI's firsthand knowledge could be reasonably inferred from the informant's detail about how the cocaine would be wrapped, the search and arrest were unlawful because there was no independent corroboration by the police of the details in the informant's tip. Upon arriving at the scene, Officer Putnam neither observed nor did he wait to observe anything to make him reasonably suspect the appellant had violated or was violating any law. He saw no sign of suspicious behavior, drugs or weapons. Moreover, the tip contained no prediction of the appellant's future actions. The appellant was merely standing in the location indicated by the CI.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 655 So. 2d 1123 - State v. Butler