Ballentine 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. “THE COURT: You will not accept the plea [bargain]. Before we proceed to trial, and I understand that a jury panel will be ready to begin the case, before we do that, I want to make certain, because of your age and because this case has been pretried, so that the Court has certain information about it, that you understand exactly what you are doing. The maximum penalty for the crime of murder in the second degree is a term of thirty years imprisonment, that is, the Court may not give you any more time than thirty years imprisonment if you decide to plead guilty to second degree murder. You are charged with murder in the first degree, and I believe also with robbery. Is that correct? MR. DANEMAN [Ballentine’s Counsel]: Yes, Your Honor. THE COURT: Robbery deadly weapon and with a handgun violation, which means that if the jury finds that you are guilty of murder in the first degree, that the Court would have no choice but to impose a sentence of life imprisonment, which means, that you could not possibly be paroled until you serve at least eleven and a half years of that sentence, and of course, you could serve the rest of your natural life, and you could not be paroled until the governor of the State, whoever that might be eleven and a half years from now, agrees to your being paroled, so that a life sentence is a very serious sentence. If you were to get a sentence of thirty years or less, the parole board can parole you at any time they see fit. Also if you are convicted of r”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 70 Md. App. 694 - Barnes v. State