Lopez v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 federal appellate · 17 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 19 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions-inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person. The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same-and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement. [[Image here]] . [When used by trained law enforcement officers, objective facts, meaningless to the untrained, can be combined with permissible deductions from such facts to form a legitimate basis for suspicion of a particular person and for action on that suspicion. | - ~”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Collins v. State · Vassar v. State

2. “the court appears to have established an understandable and workable rule with respect to the search of an automobile incident to a lawful custodial arrest.”

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

3. “the detaining officer must have a particular and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.”

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