57 Md. App. 338 - Ball v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

50 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 50 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““ ‘Error’ is a precise term of art in the appellate context. No matter how reprehensible their conduct, trial attorneys, civil or criminal, for the State or for the defense, cannot, by definition, commit error; their conduct can do no more than serve as the predicate for possible judicial . error. As Judge Powers carefully and thoughtfully analyzed for this Court in Braun v. Ford Motor Company, 32 Md.App. 545, 548 , 363 A.2d 562 (1976): ‘We know of no principle or practice under which a judgment of a trial court may be reversed or modified on appeal except for prejudicial error committed by the trial judge. It is a misuse of language to label as error any act or failure to act by a party, an attorney, a witness, a juror, or by anyone else other than the judge. In other words, error in a trial court may be committed only by a judge, and only when he rules, or, in rare instances, fails to rule, on a question raised before him in the course of a trial, or in pre-trial or post-trial proceedings. Appellate courts look only to the rulings made by a trial judge, or to his failure to act when action was required, to find reversible error.’ ” (Emphasis in original).”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. 78 Md. App. 395 - DeLuca v. State · 128 Md. App. 79 - Fisher v. State

2. ““Even after trial has begun and jeopardy has attached on a multi-count indictment or upon multiple indictments, the striking out of one count because it is duplicitous does not prevent the trial from continuing on an identical count (no longer duplicitous when it stands alone). Even after trial has begun and jeopardy has attached, a directed verdict of acquittal on a greater inclusive offense, such as assault with intent to murder, will not prevent the trial from continuing on a lesser included offense, such as simple assault, even though the two offenses qualify as ‘the same offense’ within the contemplation of the double jeopardy law. [11] Some of the dangerously universal language, uttered in the distinct context of former jeopardy situations, about the termination of the first jeopardy precluding a second jeopardy can give rise to false, but difficult to handle, contentions in situations such as these. It is why the language from the former jeopardy cases should be pinned down specifically to the former jeopardy context and not allowed to roam dangerously abroad in the generic label of undifferentiated ‘double jeopardy.’ ””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 91 Md. App. 456 - Mauk v. State

3. ““Neither double jeopardy, nor any other plea in bar, is interposed as a defense in the middle of an ongoing trial____ A judgment of acquittal on first-degree murder does not keep the trial from going forward on the issues of second-degree murder or manslaughter, even though all three are for some purposes ‘the same offense.’ Anticipating the possibility of inconsistent verdicts, the defense attorney may not insist that the jury render the acquittals first, so that he may immediately interpose a double jeopardy challenge to any subsequent rendering of convictions on charges that might arguably be ‘the same offense.’ This intra-trial time sequence is simply not the context to which double jeopardy law applies.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 91 Md. App. 456 - Mauk v. State