State v. Lopez’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In Utah, the pretext doctrine applies in cases where an officer claims to have stopped a vehicle for a minor traffic violation, but where the court determines the stop was not made because of the traffic violation but rather due to an unconstitutional motivation and, therefore, the officer has deviated from the normal course of action expected of a reasonable officer. We have articulated the pretext doctrine as whether a “reasonable ... officer, in view of the totality of the circumstances confronting him or her, would have stopped the vehicle.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. State v. Lopez · State v. Delaney

2. “An individual does not have a reasonable expectation that the police will not make a traffic stop when the individual commits a traffic violation the police regularly enforce. Thus, if a driver is stopped for traveling at eighty miles an hour in a school zone or running a red light — traffic offenses all drivers know the police regularly enforce — the driver does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. In this circumstance, the driver should not be able to avoid a stop simply because the police officer also subjectively believed the driver might be transporting drugs as such a stop is not “unexpected” or “arbitrary.””

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

3. “[a]t the time of the suppression hearing, the pretext doctrine was the controlling rule of Fourth Amendment law as interpreted by the court of appeals. Defendant had no reason to argue that the doctrine be adopted under article I, section 14 until the State challenged the doctrine on appeal. Likewise, arguments under article I, section 24 did not appear applicable until the court of appeals ruled that “equal protection policies constrain us to uphold the pretext doctrine.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Hill v. Estate of Allred