193 Md. App. 522 - Palmer v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 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 4 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““If we hold each count to be concurrent to those not specified, that would directly contradict and undo the relationships that the court did specify for no reason. Case law does not demand that we interpret the time imposed for one count as concurrent with every count not explicitly related. To do so would not only cause us to enforce contradictions but would unduly burden a trial court that wishes to simplify its pronouncement by relying on logical combinations. Furthermore, appellant’s interpretation of the rule of lenity could cause more confusion than it allegedly resolves. Appellant does not state precisely how, under his theory, the court should have pronounced his sentence. It appears, however, that he would have had the court state that [D] was both consecutive to [A] and concurrent with [C], which could actually create additional confusion by leaving open the question of which count would take priority if the terms change.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 196 Md. App. 477 - Butcher v. State

2. ““In a technical and, hence, legal sense, [D] is not ‘consecutive to [A];’ it is only ‘concurrent with [C].’ This is to say that [D] depends only on [C] and operates independently of [A]. In other words, [D] cannot begin to run until [C] begins to ru,n, as opposed to after [A] has expired. The distinction is academic in the case at hand because the beginning of [C] coincides with the end of [A]. If [C] were nullified, however, [D] would be left with nothing to which it could be ‘consecutive.’ “These facts are not before us, however, and so we need not decide what would occur if one or more ‘intermediate’ sentences were nullified.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 196 Md. App. 477 - Butcher v. State

3. ““If a relation between things (be they numbers, sentences, or what have you) is transitive, then if one thing is related to a second thing, and that second thing is similarly related to a third thing, then the first and the third things are related in the same way. The relationship ‘is greater than’ is perhaps the simplest example. It is transitive because if x is greater than y and y is greater than z, then x is greater than z. Here, the question is whether sentence * being consecutive to y, and y consecutive to z, implies that x is consecutive to z, as well.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 196 Md. App. 477 - Butcher v. State