152 Md. App. 548 - Uzzle v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Here, appellant was charged with multiple counts of armed robbery, use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence, and assault. The charges arose from an incident where, according to the State’s evidence, appellant and an accomplice entered a bank armed with a gun. They told everyone to “get down,” jumped over the bank teller’s station, and proceeded to rob the bank. There was no evidence presented at trial that the gun was ever fired. Appellant’s defenses were based on theories suggesting that appellant was not a participant in the bank robbery or, alternatively, that there was no evidence that a real gun was in fact used. Under these circumstances, we are not persuaded that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to ask appellant’s proposed voir dire question regarding attitudes of potential jurors toward guns. In Baker , jurors were required to consider (1) whether the defendant actually believed he was in immediate danger, and, if this belief was reasonable, (2) whether, by discharging his gun, the defendant used no more force than was reasonably necessary. Under those circumstances, a juror who believed that use of a handgun is never appropriate would not be able to give fair and impartial consideration to Baker’s self-defense argument. At the same time, a juror with strong feelings in favor of handguns might have a “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude that would unfairly prejudice the trial process. Therefore, under the circumstances in Baker”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 172 Md. App. 168 - Singfield v. State