Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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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.
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Although a trial court may grant a defendant's motion to dismiss under G.S. 15A–954 or –1227 and the State may enter an oral dismissal in open court under G.S. 15A–931, the trial court has no authority to enter an order dismissing the case on its own motion.
The defendant was arrested for impaired driving. Because of his extreme intoxication, he was taken to a hospital for medical treatment. The defendant was belligerent and combative at the hospital, and was medicated in an effort to calm his behavior. After the defendant was medically subdued, a nurse withdrew his blood. She withdrew some blood for medical purposes and additional blood for law enforcement use. No warrant had been issued authorizing the blood draw. The defendant moved to suppress evidence resulting from the warrantless blood draw on constitutional grounds. The trial court granted the motion, suppressing evidence of the blood provided to law enforcement and the subsequent analysis of that blood. The State appealed from that interlocutory order, certifying that the evidence was essential to the prosecution of its case. The North Carolina Supreme Court, in State v. Romano, 369 N.C. 678 (2017), affirmed the trial court’s ruling suppressing the State’s blood analysis, and remanded the case for additional proceedings.
While the case was pending before the state supreme court, the State filed a motion for disclosure of the defendant’s medical records on the date of his arrest, which included records of the hospital’s analysis of his blood. The motion was granted, and the medical records were disclosed.
After the case was remanded, the State proceeded to try the defendant on charges of habitual impaired driving and driving while license revoked for impaired driving. The defendant moved to dismiss the charges and to suppress the evidence of his medical records. The trial court denied the motions, and the defendant was convicted.
The defendant argued on appeal that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss. Noting that the State appealed the order suppressing evidence from the warrantless blood draw on the basis that the State’s analysis of his blood was essential to its case, the defendant argued that the State should not have been permitted to try the case against him on remand because that evidence was ordered suppressed. The court rejected the defendant’s argument, stating that the supreme court’s decision simply upheld the suppression of the evidence. It did not preclude the State from proceeding to trial without the suppressed evidence on remand. Thus, the court of appeals concluded that the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss.
Over a dissent the court held that the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction for armed robbery where it consisted of a single partial fingerprint on the exterior of a backpack worn by the victim at the time of the crime and that counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to raise this issue on the defendant’s first appeal. Evidence showed that the assailants “felt around” the victim’s backpack; the backpack however was not stolen. The backpack, a movable item, was worn regularly by the victim for months prior to the crime while riding on a public bus. Additionally, the defendant left the backpack unattended on a coat rack while he worked in a local restaurant. Reviewing the facts of the case and distinguishing cases cited by the State, the court concluded that the circumstances of the crime alone provide no evidence which might show that the fingerprint could only have been impressed at the time of the crime. The court went on to reject the State’s argument that other evidence connected the defendant to the crime.
In an impaired driving case, evidence that the defendant’s BAC was .09 was sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss, notwithstanding evidence that the machine may have had a margin of error of .02. The court concluded: “Defendant’s argument goes to the credibility of the State’s evidence, not its sufficiency to withstand defendant’s motion to dismiss. Such an argument is more appropriately made to the jury at trial, and not to an appellate court.”
The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss where the defendant’s argument went to issues of credibility.
The trial court erred by granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss a charge of felon in possession of a firearm on grounds that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to him. The defendant’s motion was unverified, trial court heard no evidence, and there were no clear stipulations to the facts. To prevail in a motion to dismiss on an as applied challenge to the statute, the defense must present evidence allowing the trial court to make findings of fact regarding the type of felony convictions and whether they involved violence or threat of violence; the remoteness of the convictions; the felon's history of law abiding conduct since the crime; the felon's history of responsible, lawful firearm possession during a period when possession was not prohibited; and the felon's assiduous and proactive compliance with amendments to the statute.