150 Md. App. 403 - Perry 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. “"[Md. Rule 4--325(c)] states clearly that if a party timely requests an instruction, it is error not to give the instruction (or its equivalent) if it is generated by the evidence. It is error to do too little, but the rule does not make it error to do too much. It does no) even address the subject of doing too much. Wilh respect to the supplementary instruction now in issue, the dispositive answer is that the appellant did not request it. There was, therefore, no possible way that the appellant could be denied an instruction to which he was entitled. Rule 4-325(c) addresses no other problem. “Our conclusion as to excessive and frequently unnecessary jury instruction was 1) that the phenomenon is sad, 2) that it is unfortunate, and 3) that it nonetheless happens all the time. It has never been suggested that it is reversible error. A rule requiring a necessary instruction does not forbid an unnecessary instruction. It is under-inclusion that runs the risk of error. Over-inclusion only runs the risk of boredom.””

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

2. “All of this brings us down to a truism about appellate psychology that most appellants seem stubbornly unwilling to comprehend. When invoking unreviewable discretion, the arguments must appeal as much, if not more, to what the judge feels as to what the judge thinks. Appellants, however, treat the legal argument in a “plain error” case just as if it had been preserved for review and just as if a reviewing panel were champing at the bit for a chance to address it. They blithely ignore the very real question of why the reviewing panel, if not required to address an issue, would wish to do so.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 201 Md. App. 155 - Molter v. State

3. “There is a naive assumption that if a contention would prevail on its merits that it should be noticed under the “plain error” exemption, even if not preserved. Reversible error; however, is assumed, as a given, before the purely discretionary decision of whether to notice it even comes into play.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 201 Md. App. 155 - Molter v. State