133 Md. App. 325 - Dixon v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “A defendant is convicted by a jury of involuntary manslaughter and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence. The trial court sentences the defendant to three years imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter. On the use of a handgun count, the court imposes a concurrent three year term despite the fact that Art. 27, § 36B(d), mandates a sentence of not less than 5 years without parole. The defendant appeals, and the Court of Special Appeals orders a new trial. At the new trial, the defendant is again convicted of involuntary manslaughter and use of a handgun. Accepting the State’s premise that for the purposes of [CJP] § 12-702(b) “the sentence previously imposed” is the sentence that was actually imposed even if that sentence is illegal, the trial court cannot impose a sentence more severe than three years for use of a handgun. The Legislature plainly did not intend this result, which would defeat the mandate of § 36B(d). The sentence actually imposed by the trial court cannot operate as a sentencing cap under [CJP] § 12-702(b) if it is more severe than the maximum sentence authorized by law or less severe than the minimum sentence required by law, regardless of whether the illegality favors the State or the defendant.”

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

2. “After examining the evidence, the jury instructions, the opening statements, and the closing arguments, it was clear that the convictions for child abuse, in both companion cases, were exclusively for the sexual variety of child abuse and had nothing to do with the physical injury variety of the crime: So far as child abuse in concerned, we can put aside any thought that these cases involve any aspect of child abuse based on physical harm or cruel physical treatment. At both Nightingale’s and Myers’s trials, the State’s theory, as presented in opening statement, closing argument, and the court’s instructions, was sexual child abuse. Nightingale v. State, 312 Md. at 707, 542 A.2d 373 , For the merger analysis that followed, the physical injury form of the multi-form crime of child abuse was factored out as if it had never existed. Using the rule lenity to resolve certain further ambiguities, The Court of Appeals concluded that the specific sexual offense conviction did, indeed, merge into the conviction for the sexual variety of child abuse.”

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

3. “For purposes of both the Maryland Rule and the federal Due Process Clause, it is beyond dispute that the standard against which we measure any subsequent sentence is the original sentence that actually WAS, not the sentence that arguably SHOULD HAVE BEEN. The “sentence previously imposed” is the sentence that first came from the mouth of the sentencing judge — right or wrong, lawful or unlawful, constitutional or unconstitutional — and not the subsequent fate of that sentence, as it may have been cut or trimmed or shaped or in any way reformed by ex post facto appellate analysis. When Judge Rymer pronounced his sentences on December 12, 1997, that sentencing event, was for purposes of North Carolina v. Pearce and Md. Rule 12-702(b) [sic], locked immutably into history. No dicta of ours can change what Judge Rymer did. We may alter the effect of what he did, but cannot change the fact that he did it. Neither may a leap of logic by [Petitioner]. “The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on....””

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