192 Md. App. 134 - Marlin v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

20 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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““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 legislature 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.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 198 Md. App. 655 - Moore v. State · 218 Md. App. 196 - Kyler v. State

2. “Considerations of fairness and reasonableness reinforce our conclusion [to merge].... We have ... looked to whether the type of act has historically resulted in multiple punishment. The fairness of multiple punishments in a particular situation is obviously important. Implicit in this reasoning is the idea that when a single act is sufficient to result in convictions for both offenses, but the victim suffered only a single harm as a result of that act, then as a matter of fundamental fairness there should be only one punishment because in a real-world sense there was only one crime.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 198 Md. App. 655 - Moore v. State