79 Md. App. 140 - Hamilton v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

12 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 12 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In the trial of a pro se criminal defendant, the court must advise the defendant of his constitutional rights to testify and to remain silent, so that he may make an informed choice to invoke one right and waive the other. When the defendant is represented by counsel, no such requirement exists. On the contrary, Maryland law recognizes a presumption, premised on the permitted inference that attorneys, as officers of the court, “do as the law and their duty require them,” that a represented defendant has been told of his constitutional rights, by his attorney. Thus, even though the right to testify must be waived by the defendant personally, the trial court is entitled to assume that counsel has properly advised the defendant about that right and the correlative right to remain silent and, if the defendant does not testify, that he has effectively waived his right to do so.[]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 189 Md. App. 20 - Gregory v. State

2. “[These] two rights, each of Constitutional dimension, are necessarily in conflict. A defendant must choose between them. If he elects to testify, and thus subject himself to the possibility of self-incrimination through cross-examination, he gives up — waives—his equal but opposite right to refrain from compelled self-incrimination; if, on the other hand, to avoid that prospect, he elects not to testify, he obviously gives up — waives—his right to tell from his own lips his side of the story. Precisely because the election of one of these Constitutional rights acts as a waiver of the other, the decision to choose between them is a critical one for the defendant and must therefore reflect, at a minimum, an awareness of these correlative rights and a basic understanding of what each entails.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 117 Md. App. 542 - Tilghman v. State

3. “Most jurisdictions which have considered the point have held that failure by a trial court to advise a defendant not represented by counsel of his right to refuse to take the witness stand constitutes prejudicial error. However, we do not deem it essential for the protection of a defendant’s constitutional rights that he be advised by the court of his right against self-incrimination when he is represented by counsel. [Citations omitted.]”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 152 Md. App. 623 - Belton v. State