See United States v. Everett, p. 12. This is one of the few appellate decisions that I know of that cites a blog, other than Sentencing Law & Policy (the undisputed champion of this field, which has been cited at least 10 times by appellate decisions). Congratulations, Orin!
Bleh says:
Congrats, Orin!
April 6, 2010, 4:35 pmS says:
Well done, I read it here first. But one might not be surprised that it’s an OK post admitting that there is in fact a “hard question” — an even rarer thing in the blog world.
April 6, 2010, 4:35 pmuh_clem says:
Now I really owe Orin a beer.
April 6, 2010, 4:42 pmShelbyC says:
I’m waiting for the first time one of the commenter formerly known as “Oren”‘s comments is cited and attributed to Orin.
April 6, 2010, 4:47 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Could this development incline bloggers to consider grammar, punctuation, word choice and content more carefully (recognizing that some citers might desire to dismiss or deride the blogger’s position — or the blogger), or to refrain from posting certain thoughts?
April 6, 2010, 5:02 pmJRL says:
I am glad that federal clerks, and not just people like me, know where to look for practical legal analysis.
April 6, 2010, 5:29 pmDilan Esper says:
I’m waiting for Jonathan Adler to pick up a 6th Circuit citation.
April 6, 2010, 5:35 pmJoseph Slater says:
What “S” said.
April 6, 2010, 5:53 pmjosh says:
What “S” said. Imagine, hard questions!
April 6, 2010, 6:29 pmMikhail Koulikov says:
Eugene,
For all it’s worth, Peoples, L. (2009). Citation of blogs in judicial opinions. Available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1495181 – although it looks like at this point, this is still in a pre-print stage, and you would have to get in touch with the author directly to get access to it.
April 6, 2010, 8:03 pmTim Fowler says:
Can someone quote the cite and/or link to the initial blog post, I’d rather not pour through the pdf
April 6, 2010, 8:13 pmSuperSkeptic says:
http://volokh.com/2009/10/21/officer-questioning-in-a-traffic-stop/
April 6, 2010, 9:51 pmAndrew says:
Orin was talking about the First Circuit’s decision in Chaney. But the Sixth Circuit didn’t mention Chaney. Odd.Oops, I take that back. My pdf-searcher was on the fritz. Judge Boggs mentioned Chaney immediately after quoting Orin.
April 6, 2010, 11:34 pmJeff Walden says:
Well done on the cite, and for indirectly pointing me back to that post — some good stuff (and troubling questions indeed) that I missed there from the original time it was posted.
The decision seems broadly sensible and correct to me, but I take some pause at footnote 9. The idea that there’s a meaningful distinction between digressive questioning before the course of a lawful stop has completed and after seems problematic to me, for precisely the same reason the decision deemed Everett’s proposed rule an insufficient deterrence: the officer simply has to shift those questions earlier in the stop. If, say, a few tens of seconds of extraneous questioning are fine early in the stop, it’s not clear to me why those same questions would, as a hard-line matter, be unacceptable at the end. Maybe looking at Urrieta would clarify the distinction, but as I don’t have the time to look into that further case, this minor part of the decision feels shaky to me.
April 7, 2010, 12:02 amJeffinCA says:
Referring back to the original post by Orin, would it be acceptable for the passenger to refuse to answer any questions from the officer? I was under the impression that refusal to answer could not create reasonable suspicion. I’m not following on what basis the officer has to detain the passenger without reasonable suspicion.
April 7, 2010, 11:54 ambrentpeterson01 says:
Although it ended up not being relevant to the disposition of the case, this line from the opinion was amusing:
“As the government concedes, Ford had no particularized basis to suspect
that Everett possessed any weapons, drugs, or other contraband – although she testified
that, in her experience, it was ‘very common . . . for people to have firearms in [their]
vehicle after they have been drinking.’”
It is very common for people to have firearms in their car after they have been drinking? C’mon.
By the way, the Court’s opinion was very clear and easy to read. I thought the tone was a bit breezy considering the seriousness of the subject matter, but it was well written.
April 7, 2010, 2:01 pm