76 Md. App. 56 - Vogel v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

4 federal appellate · 21 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 25 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““A source of inevitable confusion is that with respect to some crimes, although by no means all crimes, there is a shift or variation with respect to legal elements. We tend uncritically to equate one shift with another. The necessary shifting or selection of elements within a multiform crime, however, is by no means the same as a shift or variation with respect to the evidence by which to prove an unshifting legal element. Although there are present the deceptive common denominators of movement and choice and variation, all shifts within the course of a criminal prosecution are not legally the same. Some crimes are what Judge Adkins referred to in Nightingale and Myers v. State, supra, as ‘multi-purpose’ crimes. What is involved is more than different ways of doing the same thing. That is a matter of fact. It is rather the case that even fundamentally different things may nonetheless constitute the same crime. That is a matter of law. When a criminal offense comes in several different kinds, one does not even begin to catalogue the required elements until one has selected the kind of the offense applicable in a given case. ‘When a multi-purpose criminal statute is involved, we refine it by looking at the alternative elements relevant to the case at hand.’ Id.” In handling a multi-purpose crime such as robbery, we”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 133 Md. App. 325 - Dixon v. State · 76 Md. App. 738 - Snowden v. State

2. ““A critical distinction must be made between 1) the choice of elements to pinpoint the particular form of a crime that comes in various forms and 2) the choice of evidence to prove a given element of a crime. The former choice does not involve the Blockburger test; it is a choice that has to be made before the Blockburger test is even applied. The latter choice does.involve Blockburger and requires us to distinguish between ‘required evidence’ and ‘actual evidence.’ The distinction between ‘required evidence’ and ‘actual evidence’ is conceptually an elusive one and can probably best be pinned down by the use of example. When considering, for instance, the possible merger of 1) simple assault into 2) assault with intent to murder, every element necessary to prove simple assault is also a required element for proving assault with intent to murder. Simple assault is, therefore, a lesser included crime which is merged or subsumed into the greater inclusive crime of assault with intent to murder. The same relationship holds true with respect to robbery and its necessarily included larceny and with respect to a consummated burglary and its necessarily included attempted burglary. Thus, assault is a ‘required element’ of or ‘required evidence’ of assault with intent to murder; larceny is a ‘required element’ of or ‘required evidence’ of robbery.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 76 Md. App. 738 - Snowden v. State

3. ““When, as here, a multi-purpose criminal statute is involved, the court: ‘must construct from the alternative elements within the statute the particular formulation that applies to the case at hand. It should rid the statute of alternative elements that do not apply. It must, in other words, treat a multi-purpose statute written in the alternative as it would treat separate statutes. The theory behind the analysis is that a criminal statute written in the alternative creates a separate offense for each alternative and should therefore be treated for double jeopardy purposes as separate statutes would.’ Pandelli v. United States, 635 F.2d 533, 537 (6th Cir. 1980).””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. 76 Md. App. 738 - Snowden v. State