State v. North’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 district · 20 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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[T]he issue before us is one of legislative intent — whether, through its enactment of § 287B, the General Assembly intended to withdraw from the purview of the common law offense of attempt the conduct covered by the new statute. In Robinson v. State, 353 Md. 683 , 728 A.2d 698 (1999), we held it to be “a generally accepted rule of law that statutes are not presumed to repeal the common law ‘further than is expressly declared, and that a statute, made in the affirmative without any negative expressed or implied, does not take away the common law,’ ” but we also observed that “[wjhere a statute and the common law are in conflict, or where a statute deals with an entire subject-matter, the rule is otherwise, and the statute is generally construed as abrogating the common law as to that subject.” Id. at 693 , 728 A.2d at 702-03 , quoting, in part, from Lutz v. State, 167 Md. 12, 15 , 172 A. 354, 356 (1934), quoting, in turn, 25 R.C.L. 1054. This view, generally disfavoring repeal of the common law by implication, has a long history in Maryland. In Hooper v. Mayor & C.C. of Balto., 12 Md. 464, 475 (1859), we quoted with approval from Dwarris on Statutes at 695 that “it is not to be presumed that the legislature intended to make any innovation upon the common law, further than the case absolutely required,” but that “[t]he law rather infers that the act did not intend to make any alteration other than what is specified, and besides what has been plainly pronounced.” (Emphasis in ”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 200 Md. App. 510 - McNeal v. State · GENIES v. State

2. “"[I]t is not to be presumed that the legislature intended to make any innovation upon the common law, further than the case absolutely required," ... "[t]he law rather infers that the act did not intend to make any alteration other than what is specified, and besides what has been plainly pronounced."”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Azarian v. Witte · 140 Md. App. 69 - Azarian v. Witte

3. “Under Maryland common law, the attempt to commit a crime is, itself, a separate misdemeanor. It is, however, an “adjunct crime” that “cannot exist by itself, but only in connection with another crime.” The attempt thus attaches itself to the substantive offense and is committed when a person, with the intent to commit that substantive offense “engages in conduct which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that crime, whether or not his [or her] intention is accomplished.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 192 Md. App. 251 - In Re Caitlin N.