Commonwealth v. Rivas’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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[w]hile it is possible that the driver of a car with a red rejection sticker has corrected the underlying safety issues and has merely neglected to get the car reinspected, the police officer was not required to 'exclude all possible innocent explanations of the facts and circumstances.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 100 Mass. App. Ct. 600 - COMMONWEALTH v. DESMOND F. JONES.

2. “[U]nless the information is available by computer in the police car, the officer cannot know if the sixty-day grace period has expired. Therefore, there are reasonable grounds to allow the stop in both [Rivas and Baez].”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 100 Mass. App. Ct. 600 - COMMONWEALTH v. DESMOND F. JONES.

3. “a certificate of rejection does not automatically prohibit a car from being driven; a certificate of rejection does indicate that the car may have failed a safety test and has not passed another since the failed test.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 100 Mass. App. Ct. 600 - COMMONWEALTH v. DESMOND F. JONES.