Leave it to Maryland's highest court to invoke Goldilocks into one of its opinions. Yep, that very same tale you remember as a kid in which the girl visits the three bears and tries the porridge and find one bowl too hot, one too cold and other just right.

The esteemed panel of the Court of Appeals found two Court of Special Appeals judges "just right" to uphold the conviction of a man of robbing a convenience store in Kent County, despite the fact that one of the judges died after arguments but before the opinion was issued.

"With the filing of this opinion, this Court will have completed a "Goldilocks" trilogy," the appeals panel wrote in its opening line of Brandon Justin Jackson v. State of Maryland.

The court noted, unanimously I might add, that they had previously determined that "more than 13 judges" deciding a case "was too much." In another case, they concluded that on a three-judge panel, when one dies but the remaining judges are split, "the number of judges are too few."

But in the most recent case, the death of the judge left two judges who concurred, so it didn't matter what the late judge thought. "In the present case, we shall fight that two judges in agreement are just right."

I wonder if in some clerk's drawer there is a draft of a dissent?