Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
About
This compendium includes significant criminal cases by the U.S. Supreme Court & N.C. appellate courts, Nov. 2008 – Present. Selected 4th Circuit cases also are included.
Jessica Smith prepared case summaries Nov. 2008-June 4, 2019; later summaries are prepared by other School staff.
Instructions
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In this habeas corpus case, the Court reversed the Sixth Circuit, which had held that defense counsel provided per se ineffective assistance of counsel under United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648 (1984), when he was briefly absent during testimony concerning other defendants. The Court...
(1) Addressing the merits of the defendant’s Strickland ineffective assistance of counsel claim in this direct appeal in a capital case, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his lawyers disclosed to law enforcement where to...
(1) Investigators did not violate the capital defendant’s constitutional right to counsel by continuing to question him after an attorney who had been appointed as provisional counsel arrived at the sheriff’s office and was denied access to the defendant. The interrogation began before the...
Where appointed counsel was allowed to withdraw, on the sixth day of a bribery trial, pursuant to Comment 3 of Rule 1.16(a) of the N.C. Rules of Professional Conduct, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that private counsel retained after this incident was presumptively ineffective given...
The defendant was denied his constitutional right to counsel when the trial court held a resentencing hearing on the defendant’s pro se MAR while the defendant was unrepresented. The court vacated the judgment and remanded for a new sentencing hearing.
The trial court’s denial of a motion to continue in a murder case did not violate the defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel. The defendant asserted that he did not realize that certain items of physical evidence were shell casings found in defendant’s room until the eve of trial...