State v. Byerley’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 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 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The final issue is whether exigent circumstances existed justifying the seizure. In Fuqua v. Armour, 543 S.W.2d 64 (Tenn.1976), the Court held that when probable cause exists, an automobile may be searched or seized without a warrant so long as exigent circumstances exist. Exigent circumstances exist when a vehicle is moving on a public highway and it is impracticable to obtain a search warrant but do not exist “after the vehicle has completed its journey and is at rest on private premises.” Id. at 66 . The law of Fuqua reiterates that there is no exigency per se in the inherent mobility of cars. Id. at 67 . While the word “automobile” is not a “talisman in whose presence the Fourth Amendment disappears,” Fuqua v. Armour, supra at 67, citing Coolidge , the fact that a car is parked on private grounds likewise does not automatically foreclose the occurrence of some exigency permitting a war-rantless search. To claim that Fuqua stands for the proposition that exigent circumstance can never occur in relation to a car parked on private property is erroneous. This case is significantly distinguishable from the facts in Fuqua , where the car had been parked in the same place in a driveway for three weeks, and at a time when defendant was in custody. Under the circumstances presented in Fuqua , the relative ease in obtaining a warrant for the seizure of the car was crucial. ... This case presents the kind of fluid situation in which the car is not secured, the risk of delay to obtai”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Leveye