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
Navigate using the table of contents to the left or by using the search box below. Use quotations for an exact phrase search. A search for multiple terms without quotations functions as an “or” search. Not sure where to start? The 5 minute video tutorial offers a guided tour of main features – Launch Tutorial (opens in new tab).
In this Wake County case, the petitioner appealed from the trial court’s order requiring him to register as a sex offender in North Carolina based on his out-of-state conviction from New York. The Court of Appeals concluded that the petitioner is required to register as a sex offender in North Carolina and affirmed the trial court’s order.
The petitioner was convicted of attempted first-degree rape in New York in 1993. In 2022, after the petitioner moved to North Carolina, the Wake County Sheriff’s Office notified him that he was required to register as a sex offender based on the New York conviction. The petitioner filed for a judicial determination under G.S. 14-208.12B. The trial court concluded that the New York conviction was substantially similar to second-degree forcible rape under G.S. 14-27.22, and therefore required registration.
On appeal, the petitioner argued that his New York conviction was not substantially similar to a North Carolina crime requiring registration, because it was for an attempt, and thus not included within the definition of a reportable offense in North Carolina. The Court of Appeals concluded that substantial similarity was irrelevant. The New York conviction required registration in North Carolina based on the second pathway to reportability set out in G.S. 14-208.6(4)(b): that the offense requires registration under the law of the state of conviction. That pathway, initially enacted in 2006 and amended in 2010 to apply to all individuals with qualifying out-of-state convictions regardless of the date they move to North Carolina, applied to the petitioner. Therefore, because his attempted rape conviction required registration in New York, it requires registration here “independent of any substantial similarity analysis.” Slip op. at 8.
In this Guilford County case, defendant appealed the order requiring him to register a sex offender, arguing the federal statute he pleaded guilty under was not substantially similar to North Carolina’s statute. The Court of Appeals vacated the order and remanded to the trial court for a new hearing.
In April of 2003, defendant pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(4)(a) in Puerto Rico. Defendant completed his 40-month sentence and three years of supervised release. In October 2021, the Guilford County Sheriff's Office informed defendant he must register as a sex offender, and defendant filed a petition for a judicial determination of sex offender registration requirement. During the June 2022 hearing, the State offered a copy of defendant’s 2003 conviction along with a copy of the 2021 version of 18 U.S.C. 2252(a)(4)(a), arguing it was substantially similar to G.S. 14-190.17A(a), third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. The trial court ultimately ordered defendant to register, finding the statutes substantially similar.
Taking up defendant’s argument, the Court of Appeals noted that “we have ‘consistently held that when evidence of the applicable law is not presented to the trial court, the party seeking a determination of substantial similarity has failed to meet its burden of establishing substantial similarity by a preponderance of the evidence.’” Slip Op. at 5, quoting State v. Sanders, 367 N.C. 716, 718 (2014). Here, the State did not offer any evidence related to the 2003 version of the federal statute or that the statute was unchanged since defendant’s plea. As a result, “[t]he State failed to provide to the trial court such evidence as to allow it to determine that 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4)(A) remained unchanged from 2003 to 2021 and that the federal statute is substantially similar to the North Carolina statute.” Id. at 6. This failure justified vacating the order and remanding for a new hearing.
In this Cumberland County case, the defendant was convicted by a jury of second-degree rape and second-degree sexual offense against a victim named Tamara. The offenses were committed in 2011, but not successfully investigated until a DNA database match in 2017. During the trial, the trial judge allowed testimony by another woman, Kesha, who alleged that the defendant had previously raped her in 2009, for the purpose of proving the identity of the assailant in Tamara’s case. (1) The defendant argued on appeal that the trial court erred in admitting the prior act testimony from Kesha under N.C. R. Evid. 404(b). Reviewing for plain error, the Court of Appeals concluded that the overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s identity and guilt made it improbable that the jury would have reached a different result even if the evidence had been admitted in error—as it may have been given that the defendant’s identity was not necessarily in issue in the case (he did not claim an alibi), and the circumstances of the two rapes were not particularly similar.
(2) The defendant also argued that the trial court erred by finding that his convictions under G.S. 14-27.3 and G.S. 14-27.5, the former statutes for second-degree rape and second-degree sexual offense, required sex offender registration, because those former statutes are not specifically listed in the current list of reportable offenses. Notwithstanding the State’s lack of a compelling argument on appeal, the Court of Appeals on its own found the effective date provision in the 2015 recodification act, which said that prosecutions for offenses committed before December 1, 2015 remain subject to the laws that would otherwise be applicable to those offenses, including the list of reportable convictions in the former version of G.S. 14-208.6(5). The trial court therefore did not err in ordering the defendant to register.
(3) Finally, the defendant argued that the trial court erred by ordering him to enroll in satellite-based monitoring for life without conducting a full determination hearing. The Court of Appeals agreed. The State specifically elected not to proceed with the hearing during the sentencing phase, and the trial court thus erred by ordering SBM. The Court of Appeals vacated the SBM orders and remanded the issue for hearing.
The trial court did not err by requiring the defendant to report as a sex offender after he was convicted of sexual battery, a reportable conviction. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that because he had appealed his conviction, it was not yet final and thus did not trigger the reporting requirements.
The court per curiam affirmed the decision below, Walters v. Cooper, 226 N.C. App. 166 (Mar. 19, 2013), in which the court of appeals had held, over a dissent, that a PJC entered upon a conviction for sexual battery does not constitute a “final conviction” and therefore cannot be a “reportable conviction” for purposes of the sex offender registration statute.
The trial court properly required the defendant to enroll in lifetime SBM. When deciding whether a conviction counts as a reportable conviction as an “offense against a minor”, the trial court is not restricted to considering the elements of the offense; the trial court may make a determination as to whether or not the defendant was a parent of the abducted child. The defendant had a 2009 conviction for abduction of a child. Although the State did not present any independent evidence at the SBM hearing that the defendant was not the child’s parent, the trial court previously made this determination at the 2009 sentencing hearing when it found the conviction to be a reportable offense. This prior finding supported the trial court’s determination at the SBM hearing that the defendant’s conviction for abduction of a child was a reportable conviction as an offense against a minor.
A conviction for abduction of a child under G.S. 14-41 triggers registration requirements if the offense is committed against a minor and the person committing the offense is not the minor’s parent. The court held that as used in G.S. 14-208.6(1i), the term parent includes only a biological or adoptive parent, not one who “acts as a parent” or is a stepparent.
While living with family friends in Wake County, the defendant placed a secret camera in various rooms at different times to record an adult female occupant. He later pled guilty to one count of felony secret peeping. Under the peeping statute, G.S. 14-202(l), the defendant may be required to register as a sex offender for a qualifying conviction (or subsequent conviction) if the court determines the defendant is a danger to the community and that the purposes of the sex offender registration program would be served by requiring the defendant to register. Under G.S. 14-208.5, the purposes of the registration program are to provide law enforcement and the public with information about sex offenders and those who commit crimes against children in order to protect communities. The trial court found that the defendant was a danger to the community and ordered him to register as a sex offender for 30 years. The trial court did not order a Static-99 assessment of the defendant and no evidence was presented regarding the defendant’s likelihood of recidivism. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed (that decision is summarized here) and the defendant appealed.
Reviewing G.S. 14-202(l) de novo, a majority of the court affirmed. It rejected the idea that a Static-99 or evidence of likely recidivism was required to support the finding of dangerousness: “[N]either a Static-99 assessment, nor considerations of likelihood of recidivism, are dispositive on the issue of whether a defendant ‘is a danger to the community.’” Fuller Slip op. at 8. The court looked to the involuntary commitment statutes for guidance on how to evaluate a defendant’s “danger to the community.” Under those statutes, danger to self or others is determined by examining not only the respondent’s current circumstances, but also the person’s “conduct within the relevant past and [whether there is] a reasonable probability of similar conduct within the near future.” Id. at 9 (cleaned up). Thus, a finding that the defendant poses a danger to the community for purposes of G.S. 14-202(l) may be based on the defendant’s current dangerousness or on conduct in the “relevant past” that reflects a “reasonable probability of similar conduct . . . in the near future.” Id. at 10. The trial court found (and the Court of Appeals agreed) that the defendant was a danger to the community based on numerous factors. These included his taking advantage of a personal relationship to commit the crime, the “sophisticated scheme” employed to accomplish the crime, the period of time over which the crime occurred, and the “ease with which the defendant could commit similar crimes in the future,” among other factors. Id. at 11. While the trial court’s finding that the defendant lacked remorse was unsupported by the record, the remaining factors found by the trial court were sufficient to establish the defendant’s dangerousness.
Justice Earls dissented. According to her opinion, the majority contravened precedent requiring the State to show a likelihood of reoffending and disregarded the legislative intent of the registration statutes. She would have found that the trial court reversibly erred by failing to determine the defendant’s risk of recidivism. [Jamie Markham blogged in part about nonautomatic sex offender registration here.]
On March 21, 2018, the defendant pled guilty in Wake County Superior Court to felony secret peeping in violation of G.S. 14-202(e). Pursuant to a plea agreement, the defendant was placed on four years of supervised probation. Among other conditions, the defendant was not permitted to be unsupervised around children under the age of 14. The trial judge conducted a separate hearing the same day on whether the defendant would be required to register as a sex offender pursuant to G.S. 14-202(l). The trial court opted, in light of the defendant’s age, to give him a chance to show that he was not a danger to the community. The court announced that there would be a hearing in 12 months to see whether the defendant was in compliance with probation. The parties agreed to a subsequent hearing, which they agreed could be accelerated for noncompliance.
On December 1, 2018, the defendant was arrested in New Hanover County for felony secret peeping. Three days later, the State notified the defendant that based on his recent arrest he should be required to register for his Wake County conviction and that his registration hearing was being accelerated. On December 20, 2018, the defendant appeared in Wake County Superior Court before a superior court judge who was not the sentencing judge in the original Wake County case. The judge ordered the defendant to register as a sex offender for 30 years.
(1) The defendant argued on appeal that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the December 20 hearing because the presiding judge was not the “sentencing court” as contemplated by G.S. 14-202(l).
The court of appeals rejected the defendant’s argument, noting that the defendant agreed to a subsequent hearing, which he agreed could be accelerated, and agreed that he would not be unsupervised around any children under the age of 14. Thus, when he was arrested for felony secret peeping involving a nine-year-old child, he was in violation of the terms of his probation, and his hearing could be accelerated pursuant to the plea agreement. In addition, the State notified the defendant that it was accelerating his registration hearing, and the issues before the court in that hearing were to determine in the first instance whether the defendant was a danger to the community and whether his registration would further the purpose of the registration scheme. On these facts, the appellate court determined that Wake County Superior Court retained jurisdiction over the defendant’s second hearing and affirmed its order.
(2) The trial court erroneously checked box 1(b) on form AOC-CR-615 (the sex offender registration determination form), indicating the defendant was convicted of a sexually violent offense rather than box 1(d), to indicate that the defendant was convicted of felony secret peeping. The court of appeals remanded the matter to the trial court for the limited purpose of correcting that error.
Using a hidden camera built into a phone charger, the defendant made secret recordings of the woman in whose house he lived. He pled guilty to secret peeping under G.S. 14-202, but challenged the trial court’s finding that he was a “danger to the community” and had to register as a sex offender under G.S. 14-202(l). The trial court made its determination based on findings that the defendant: (1) made recordings over a long period of time (more than two months); (2) used sophisticated technology; (3) invaded the victim’s private space (her bathroom and bedroom) on multiple occasions to move the camera between them; (4) stored his recordings; and (5) could easily repeat the crime because the recording devices were cheap and easily obtainable. A divided court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the trial court’s findings supported its determination that the defendant was a person who “posed a risk of engaging in sex offenses following release from incarceration or commitment”—the standard for “danger to the community” articulated in State v. Pell, 211 N.C. App. 376 (2011). The court of appeals distinguished this case from Pell, noting that the crime here was more sophisticated and took advantage of a position of trust, and that unlike in Pell there was no indication here that the underlying cause of the defendant’s behavior was in remission or that he was moving in the right direction. A concurring judge would have affirmed the trial court under a less demanding abuse-of-discretion standard. A dissenting judge would have reversed based on the trial court’s focus on defendant’s past offenses and the lack of evidence of the likelihood of recidivism.
Using a hidden camera built into a phone charger, the defendant made secret recordings of the woman in whose house he lived. He pled guilty to secret peeping under G.S. 14-202, but challenged the trial court’s finding that he was a “danger to the community” and had to register as a sex offender under G.S. 14-202(l). The trial court made its determination based on findings that the defendant: (1) made recordings over a long period of time (more than two months); (2) used sophisticated technology; (3) invaded the victim’s private space (her bathroom and bedroom) on multiple occasions to move the camera between them; (4) stored his recordings; and (5) could easily repeat the crime because the recording devices were cheap and easily obtainable. A divided court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the trial court’s findings supported its determination that the defendant was a person who “posed a risk of engaging in sex offenses following release from incarceration or commitment”—the standard for “danger to the community” articulated in State v. Pell, 211 N.C. App. 376 (2011). The court of appeals distinguished this case from Pell, noting that the crime here was more sophisticated and took advantage of a position of trust, and that unlike in Pell there was no indication here that the underlying cause of the defendant’s behavior was in remission or that he was moving in the right direction. A concurring judge would have affirmed the trial court under a less demanding abuse-of-discretion standard. A dissenting judge would have reversed based on the trial court’s focus on defendant’s past offenses and the lack of evidence of the likelihood of recidivism.
(1) G.S. 14-202(l) (requiring sex offender registration for certain peeping offenses when a judge finds, in part, that the defendant is “a danger to the community”) is not unconstitutionally vague. (2) The trial court erred by requiring the defendant to register as a sex offender when there was no competent evidence to support a finding that he was a danger to the community. “A danger to the community” refers to those defendants who pose a risk of engaging in sex offenses following release from incarceration. Here, the State’s expert determined that the defendant represented a low to moderate risk of re-offending and acknowledged that his likelihood of re-offending may be even lower after considering a revised risk assessment scale. The trial court also reviewed letters from the defendant's psychiatrist and counselor opining that the defendant’s prior diagnoses of major depression, alcohol abuse, and paraphilia were in remission.
Because the defendant’s conviction for statutory rape, based on acts committed in 2005, cannot be considered a “reportable conviction,” the defendant was not eligible for satellite-based monitoring.