182 Md. App. 624 - DiGennaro v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

2 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 2 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “On the morning of March 21, 2005, [Respondent] was driving a dump truck northbound on Route 136 in Harford County, hauling a load of gravel to a quarry in Churchville. In attempting to lower the truck’s third axle, he, in the circuit court’s words, “hit[ ] the wrong button,” accidentally releasing approximately 3,480 pounds of gravel onto Route 136. The spill comprised three separate concentrations of gravel that, all together, covered over 800 feet of the northbound lane of Route 136. Observing, in his side mirror, gravel spewing from the rear of his truck, [Respondent] pulled over to the side of Route 136, just south of the entrance to the Churchville quarry. When he got out of the truck, [Respondent] saw what he later described to police as a “small amount of gravel” directly behind his vehicle. After kicking some of the gravel off the road, he got back into the truck and drove to the quarry. As he entered the quarry, [Respondent] placed a call, on his cell phone, to James Enders, the owner of the contracting firm that employed him, and told him, Enders would later recall, that he had “sprinkled” some gravel onto the road leading into the quarry. Concluding from [Respondent’s] words and tone that there was no immediate cause for concern, Enders responded that a “loader” would “come out” and scrape the stray stones from the entrance road. The call ended, and [Respondent], after emptying his truck of its cargo, departed for Perryville, Maryland, to pick up a supply of sand. ”

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

2. “• The conduct which underlay [Respondent’s] conviction for vehicular manslaughter, namely, his failure either to mark the area where gravel had spilled from his truck or to notify the quarry of the presence of this gravel, had nothing to do with either starting his truck’s engine or manipulating its mechanical or electrical devices. Hence, in failing to take either of the aforementioned actions, [Respondent] was not “operating” his vehicle, as that term has been construed by the Court of Appeals. In sum, as logical or even as desirable as it might be to extend the meaning of the term “operate” to include the removal or remediation of the very dangers created by the operation of a vehicle, we have no statutory or decisional basis to do so. Finally, we do not question that [Respondent] had an obligation to remediate the hazard created when he spilled gravel from his truck onto a public roadway, and we are painfully aware that his failure to satisfy this obligation produced tragic consequences. But, [Respondent] was prosecuted for vehicular manslaughter, not for common law manslaughter, and his conviction of that offense required an interpretation of “operate,” as used in § 2-209, clearly at odds with the way this term is commonly understood and has heretofore been interpreted and applied.”

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