People v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
66 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 67 later decisions — most recently March 2021 · most notably People v. Rodriguez (1997), State v. Hicks (1992)
66 state decisions — followed in 12 states
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 Terry v. Ohio · United States v. Cortez · Delaware v. Prouse · Sibron v. State of New York Peters · United States v. Brignoni-Ponce
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 67 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) there must be a specific and articula-ble basis in fact for suspecting that criminal activity has occurred, is taking place, or is about to take place; (2) the purpose of the stop must be reasonable; and (3) the scope and character of the stop must be reasonably related to its purpose.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. People v. Wilson · People v. Cagle“'facts known to the officer [at the time of the encounter], [when] taken together with rational inferences from these facts, createl ] a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage““We are aware that the weighty social objective of crime prevention might well be served by permitting stops and detentions without any requirement of a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity has occurred or is about to take place. In the absence of specific and articulable facts supporting the reasonable suspicion, however, ‘the balance between the public interest and [defendant’s] right to personal security and privacy tilts in favor of freedom from police interference.’ Brown v. Texas, [443 U.S.] at 52, 99 S. Ct. at 2641 , 61 L. Ed. 2d at 363 .” Thomas, 660 P.2d at 1277 .”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.