163 Md. App. 305 - Moore v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

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

1. “There is nothing in the legislative file that indicates that the General Assembly intended for dual convictions. There is no suggestion in either of the statutory provisions or legislative history or prior court opinions, that one of the purposes in establishing the offense of credit card theft was to compound the punishment for theft. Rather, it would appear reasonable that the credit card theft offenses were enacted to ensure that a credit card thief, who has possession of the physical credit card but has not used it for some reason or another, can still be prosecuted for theft, even though the physical card itself has very little intrinsic value. The rule of lenity instructs that a court not interpret a ... criminal statute so as to increase the penalty that it places on an individual when such an interpretation can be based on no more than a guess as to what [the legislature] intended. Moreover, the General Assembly typically makes clear when it intends to allow dual convictions or consecutive sentences, and no such direction is present here.”

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

2. ““Even though two offenses do not merge under the required evidence test, there are nevertheless times when the offenses will not be punished separately. Two crimes created by legislative enactment may not be punished separately if the legislature intended the offenses to be punished by one sentence. It is when we are uncertain whether the legisla ture intended one or more than one sentence that we make use of an aid to statutory interpretation known as the ‘rule of lenity.’ Under that rule, if we are unsure of the legislative intent in punishing offenses as a single merged crime or as distinct offenses, we, in effect, give the defendant the benefit of the doubt and hold that the crimes do merge.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 188 Md. App. 185 - Clark v. State

3. ““(a) Taking credit card from another; receiving credit card taken from another with intent to sell.—(1) A person may not: “(i) take a credit card from another, or from the possession, custody, or control of another without the consent of the cardholder!)]””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 188 Md. App. 185 - Clark v. State