90 Md. App. 437 - Watkins v. State’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. “[reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause ... [An] unverified tip from [a] known informant might not have been reliable enough to establish probable cause, but nevertheless found it sufficiently reliable to justify a Te'try stop. Reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is dependent upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Both factors—quantity and quality—are considered in the “totality of the circumstances—the whole picture,” that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspicion.”

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

2. “By virtue of this rule, when the police legally stop a person in an automobile, the police may “frisk” the automobile for weapons provided the police have reason to believe that a weapon is in the car, the police have reason to believe that the suspect is dangerous, and the police confine their search to areas of the passenger compartment “in which a weapon may be placed or hidden.” When in the course of such a search a container is found, the police may open and inspect the container without first patting it.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 179 Md. App. 666 - McDowell v. State