8 Md. App. 430 - Murphy v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

28 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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““But, as heretofore indicated, the appellant later entered a timely general objection to the admissibility of the confession which had the effect of challenging the confession on the broader constitutional ground that it was not freely and voluntarily made. See Maryland Rules 522 and 725f. Under Jackson v. Denno, supra, it was incumbent upon the trial judge to make a preliminary finding of voluntariness before admitting the confession in evidence, and that finding must, under Sims v. Georgia, supra, ‘appear from the record with unmistakable clarity.’ The ra tionale of these cases is plainly such that the trial judge must do more than, as here, .simply overrule the objection — his conclusion that the confession was voluntary must, we repeat, appear from the record ‘with unmistakable clarity.’ And this is so even where, as here, the only evidence in the case pertaining to the voluntariness of the statement showed that it was freely and voluntarily made; the trial judge still must indicate ‘with unmistakable clarity,’ that he believes such evidence and therefore finds the confession to be a voluntary one.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 33 Md. App. 445 - Kidd v. State