Jenkins v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate · 18 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. “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 factfin-ders 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. ... [Pjrobable cause is a fluid concept — turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts — not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.”

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

2. “The substance of all the definitions of probable cause is a reasonable ground for belief of guilt. And this means less than evidence which would justify condemnation or conviction, [but] more than bare suspicion: Probable cause exists where the facts and circumstances within their (the officers’) knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves •to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed.”

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

3. “The test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application. In each case it requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails. Courts must consider the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 61 So. 3d 448 - Smallwood v. State