Sibert v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently October 2018 · most notably Montgomery County v. Buckman (1994), Binnie v. State (1991)
26 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Police Commissioner v. Dowling · Coleman v. State · Mayor of Baltimore v. Hackely · State v. Berry · Thomas v. Police Commissioner
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 26 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“According to this legislative commentary, the claim of right defense in Maryland originated in Saunders v. Mullinix, 195 Md. 235 , 72 A.2d 720 (1950). The Saunders Court, in referring to this defense in dicta, stated: It is a generally accepted rule in criminal prosecutions that one who either takes or retains the property of another without the latter’s consent for a debt which he in good faith claims to be due him by the owner of the property is not guilty of larceny, because the existence of the debt or the bona fide belief in its existence shows a lack of felonious intent in the taking or detention of the property. Id. at 240 , 72 A.2d at 722 . We note parenthetically that Saunders was a civil conversion case, and the court discussed the claim of right defense by contrasting it to the tort of conversion.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. State v. Coleman · Binnie v. State“First, the commentary notes that “it seems important to make it clear beyond doubt that an honest belief that the property does not belong to another should be a defense to theft.” ... Second, the commentary states that recklessness or negligence should not serve as a basis for theft liability.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is a defense to the offense of theft that: (1) The defendant acted under a good faith claim of right to the property involved; (2) The defendant acted in the honest belief that he had the right to obtain or exert control over the property as he did;”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.