89 Md. App. 604 - Wright v. State’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

10 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 10 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It is obvious that the prosecutor’s sole reason for prevailing on the court to call Cole as a court’s witness was to get before the jury Cole’s extrajudicial hearsay statement impli eating Spence. The prosecutor knew that Cole’s testimony would be exculpatory as to Spence. The inescapable conclusion is that the State, over objection, prevailed on the court to call a witness who would contribute nothing to the State’s case, for the sole purpose of “impeaching” the witness with otherwise inadmissible hearsay. The State concedes, as it must, that Detective Naylor’s testimony about Cole’s statements regarding Spence’s participation did not fall within the hearsay exception and was inadmissible as substantive evidence against Spence ... The State cannot, over objection, have a witness called who it knows will contribute nothing to its case, as a subterfuge to admit, as impeaching evidence, otherwise inadmissible hearsay evidence. (Emphasis supplied.)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stewart v. State

2. “Here, the State knew exactly what [the witness’s] testimony would be. Prior to trial [the witness] had repeatedly told the State he would testify ... that he did not see appellant running with a gun from the scene of the shooting. The Court of Appeals did not accept this “subterfuge” in Spence , and we will not accept it here.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Stewart v. State