Webber v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

15 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The cardinal rule of statutory construction is to ascertain and carry out the legislative intention. Kaczorowski v. City of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505 , 525 A.2d 628 (1987); Guardian Life Ins. v. Ins. Comm’r, 293 Md. 629 , 446 A.2d 1140 (1982); Vallario v. State Roads Comm’n, 290 Md. 2 , 426 A.2d 1384 (1981). As Judge Adkins pointed out for this Court in Kaczorowski , the plain meaning rule is a principal canon of statutory construction. We look to the words of the statute to discover what the Legislature intended to accomplish by it “because what the Legislature has written in an effort to achieve a goal is a rational ingredient of analysis to determine that goal.” 309 Md. at 513 , 525 A.2d 628 . But the plain meaning rule is not rigid; “ ‘the meaning of the plainest language’ is con trolled by the context in which it appears.” Id. at 514 , 525 A.2d 628 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Harris v. State

2. “whether after considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 87 Md. App. 673 - Dalton v. State