Edwards v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The modern law governing the circumstances in which the State must disclose the identity of a confidential informant derives largely from three principles enunciated in Roviaro v. United States, [] 353 U.S. 53 , 77 S.Ct. 623 , 1 L.Ed.2d 639 [(1957)]. The first principle was a reaffirmation of the well-established common law privilege possessed by the Government “to withhold from disclosure the identity of persons who furnish information of violations of law to officers charged with enforcement of that law[.]” Id. at 59 , 77 S.Ct. at 627 , 1 L.Ed.2d at 644 . That privilege, the Court said, is designed to encourage citizens to communicate their knowledge of criminal activity to law enforcement officials by preserving their anonymity and thus has as its purpose “the furtherance and protection of the public interest in effective law enforcement.” Id. The second principle announced in Roviaro was that the privilege of non-disclosure is limited by its underlying purpose and is further constrained by “fundamental requirements of fairness.” Thus, the Court held, “where the disclosure of an informer’s identity, or of the contents of his communication, is relevant and helpful to the defense of an accused, or is essential to a fair determination of a cause, the privilege must give way.” Id. at 60-61 , 77 S.Ct. at 628 , 1 L.Ed.2d at 645 . Integration of those two principles produced the third — the requirement that, when presented with a defendant’s demand for disclosure, courts must “ba”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 195 Md. App. 695 - Moore v. State

2. “In that regard, courts have (1) drawn a distinction between an informant who actually participated in the criminal activity with which the defendant is charged, who may, as a result, have direct knowledge of what occurred and of the defendant’s criminal agency, and who therefore may be a critical witness with respect to the defendant’s guilt or innocence, on the one hand, and, on the other, an informant who is a mere “tipster” — a person who did nothing more than supply information to a law enforcement officer, who did not participate in the criminal activity and may not even have been present when it occurred, and who has little or no knowledge of the defendant’s guilt or innocence, and (2) tended to require disclosure in the first situation but not in the second.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 195 Md. App. 695 - Moore v. State