20 Md. App. 492 - Gladden v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Thus if one shoots at A and misses him,, but kills B, this is murder; because of the previous felonious intent, which the law transfers from one to the other. The same is the case where one lays poison for A; and B, against whom the prisoner had no malicious intent, takes it, and it kills him; this is likewise murder.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 111 Md. App. 401 - Harvey v. State · Gladden v. State

2. ““What is the situation where a person intends to kill one person but instead kills another person? To put it a different way, what is the situation when the deceased is not the intended victim? The law is that such a homicide partakes of the quality of the original act so that the guilt of an accused is exactly what it would have been had the shots been fired at the intended victim instead of the person actually killed. The fact that the person actually killed was killed instead of the intended victim is immaterial and the only question is what would have been the degree of guilt if the result intended had actually been accomplished. The intent is transferred to the person whose death has been caused. If you find from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant would be otherwise guilty of murder in the first degree of Mr. Siegel, and I have defined murder in the first degree, if you find from the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant would be otherwise guilty of murder in the first degree of Mr. Siegel, and if you find further beyond a reasonable doubt that the Nixon child died as a result of a bullet or bullets striking him fired by this defendant, then you should find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Gladden v. State

3. ““Whenever an accountable man kills another intentionally, he is guilty of murder with express malice unless the killing is justifiable or excusable, or unless there are such circumstances of provocation as will reduce the homicide to manslaughter. This principle is applied when a man kills one person when he intended to kill another. For example, if a man shoots at one person with intent to kill him, and unintentionally kills another, or sets poison for one person and another drinks it and dies, it is murder with express malice of the person killed, though he is a friend.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Gladden v. State