36 Md. App. 459 - Tripp v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

79 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 79 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““. . . there must be not simply provocation in psychological fact, but one of certain fairly well-defined classes of provocation recognized as being adequate as a matter of law. Clark and Marshall, Law of Crimes (Sixth Wingersky Ed., 1958), describes the objective character of this test, at 621: ‘To reduce a homicide from murder to manslaughter, the provocation must be adequate in law, and to be so it must be so great as reasonably to excite passion and heat of blood. Passion without adequate provocation is not enough. If a man unreasonably allows his passion to control his judgment, he is responsible to the full extent for the consequences of his acts. The line which distinguishes provocations which will mitigate the offense from those which will not, cannot be clearly defined.' Reasonableness is the test. The law contemplates the case of a reasonable man — an ordinarily reasonable man — and requires that the provocation shall be such as might naturally induce such a man, in the anger of the moment, to commit the deed.’ (Emphasis supplied)” 36 Md. App. at 473 , 374 A. 2d at 392-93 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 41 Md. App. 649 - Countess v. State · 105 Md. App. 687 - Dennis v. State

2. ““The law, in its wisdom, extenuates certain killings by lowering the degree of blameworthiness because it recognizes human frailty when one is in the clutches of blind and sudden fury. The long-smoldering grudge, by way of contrast, may be psychologically just as compelling a force as the sudden impulse but it, unlike the impulse, is a telltale characteristic of premeditation. The law extenu- • ates certain killings not simply because they have been provoked but because there has also been the lack of time between the provoking cause and the impulsive response to think about the consequences or the • alternatives. In the case of the spontaneous explosion, reason has no opportunity to intervene; in the case of the ‘slow burn,’ it has.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 58 Md. App. 249 - Cunningham v. State · 195 Md. App. 647 - Wilson v. State

3. ““ ‘[T]here may be a homicide which would otherwise be murder which is reduced to manslaughter by circumstances of alleviation or mitigation. Such a case is where the circumstances surrounding the homicide establish that it was provoked. For the “Rule of Provocation” to be invoked there are four requirements: (1) There must have been adequate provocation; (2) The killing must have been in the heat of passion; (3) It must have been a sudden heat of passion —that is, the killing must have followed the provocation before there had been a reasonable opportunity for the passion to cool; (4) There must have been a causal connection between the provocation, the passion, and the fatal act.’ ””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 41 Md. App. 649 - Countess v. State · Girouard v. State