Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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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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The defendant Molly Corbett was the daughter of the co-defendant, Thomas Marten. The two were charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter following an altercation with Molly’s husband in Davidson County. The altercation occurred at the couple’s home while Molly’s mother and father were visiting overnight. The defendants were jointly tried, and both were convicted of second-degree murder. A divided Court of Appeals granted a new trial based on three evidentiary errors, as well as errors relating to the jury instructions (that decision is summarized here). Based on a partial dissent at the Court of Appeals, the State sought review at the North Carolina Supreme Court. A divided court affirmed.
(1) Following the incident, the children of the deceased husband (from an earlier marriage) made statements to a social worker at a child abuse advocacy and treatment center. They both indicated their father had been abusive towards Molly. One child provided an explanation for the presence of a brick paver (apparently used in the altercation) found in Molly’s room on the night of the incident. The other child explained that her father originally got angry that evening when she awakened her parents following a nightmare. The children were living out of the country at the time of trial and the defendants sought to admit the hearsay statements as statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and under the residual exception (803(4) and 803(24), respectively). The trial court excluded the testimony.
Rule 803(4) objections are reviewed de novo, while Rule 803(24) objections are reviewed for abuse of discretion. The statements of the children to the social worker were made for purposes of treatment and were reasonably pertinent to their treatment, satisfying Rule 803(4). When determining whether a child had the requisite intent to make a statement for purposes of treatment, North Carolina courts look to the objective circumstances surrounding the statement, including:
(1) whether ‘some adult explained to the child the need for treatment and the importance of truthfulness’; (2) ‘with whom, and under what circumstances, the declarant was speaking’; and (3) ‘the surrounding circumstances, including the setting of the interview and the nature of the questioning’. Corbett Slip op. at 21 (citation omitted).
All of those factors “strongly supported” admission of the children’s statement on the facts of the case.
The statements were also admissible under the residual hearsay exception. The trial court excluded the statements as lacking trustworthiness. No evidence in the record supported this finding, and the evidence otherwise met the requirements for admission under the residual exception. The majority therefore agreed with the Court of Appeals that the children’s statements were improperly excluded and that the defendants’ self-defense claims were undermined as a result. This was prejudicial error requiring a new trial under both rules.
(2) At trial, the State presented expert testimony regarding blood splatter patterns on the defendants’ clothes. On voir dire, the witness acknowledged that the purported blood splatter at issue was not tested for the presence of blood. He further testified that failing to test the material for blood violated the procedures for blood splatter analysis laid out in his own treatise on the subject. The trial court allowed the testimony over objection. A majority of the Court of Appeals determined the evidence was inadmissible under Rule 702, as it was not based on sufficient data and therefore could not have been the product of reliable application of the method to the facts of the case. The dissenting judge at the Court of Appeals only challenged preservation of this claim and did not discuss the merits of the Rule 702 issue in her opinion. The State also did not seek discretionary review of the Rule 702 ruling on the merits. The Supreme Court therefore examined only the preservation argument.
The majority found that the defendants’ preserved the objection by immediately objecting when the evidence was presented (after having also objected during voir dire of the witness), and by renewing the objection the next day. Further, the court determined the issue was preserved by operation of the law. Under G.S. § 15A-1446(d)(10):
[N]otwithstanding a party’s failure to object to the admission of evidence at some point at trial, a party may challenge ‘[s]ubsequent admission of evidence involving a specified line of questioning when there has been an improperly overruled objection to the admission of evidence involving that line of questioning.’ Corbett Slip op. at 44-45 (citing the statute).
While some subsections of G.S. § 15A-1446 have been found to be unconstitutional, the court has never disavowed this one and found that it applied here. Because the Court of Appeals determined this evidence was improperly admitted and that finding was not at issue on appeal to the Supreme Court, the law of the case dictated that the evidence had been improperly admitted. Thus, the defendants’ objections at trial were improperly overruled and the issue was preserved as matter of law, in addition to the grounds relied upon by the Court of Appeals.
(3) Thomas Martens testified in his defense at trial that he heard his daughter yell, “don’t hurt my dad” during the altercation. The trial court sustained the objection as hearsay. The Supreme Court again agreed with the Court of Appeals that this was error. The statement was not hearsay, as it went the Thomas’s subjective belief of fear at the time and was not offered for the truth of the statement. It was alternatively admissible as an excited utterance under N.C. R. Evid. 803(2). In isolation, this error was not prejudicial because the defendant was otherwise given wide latitude to describe his state of mind at the time. It did however contribute to the cumulative prejudice:
[T]hese errors together imposed a significant constraint on defendants’ efforts to establish a crucial fact: namely, their state of mind at the time of the events in question based on all of the circumstances known to them. Corbett Slip op. at 53.
Because the majority agreed with the decision below regarding these evidentiary issues and their prejudicial impact, the court did not reach the other issues addressed by the Court of Appeals.
Justice Berger, joined by Justices Newby and Barringer, dissented. The dissenting justices believed that the majority improperly re-weighed the evidence on appeal and would have found that Rule 803(4) issues were subject to abuse of discretion review, rather than the de novo review applied by the majority. They also faulted the majority for raising G.S. 15A-1446 when no party argued the applicability of that statute.
Modifying and affirming State v. Sargeant, 206 N.C. App. 1 (Aug. 3, 2010), the court held that the trial court committed prejudicial error by excluding defense evidence of hearsay statements made by a participant in the murder, offered under the Rule 804(b)(5) residual exception. The court noted that the only factor in dispute under the six-factor residual exception test was circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. To evaluate that factor, a court must assess, among other things, (1) the declarant's personal knowledge of the event; (2) the declarant's motivation to speak the truth; (3) whether the declarant recanted; and (4) the reason for the declarant's unavailability. Because the record established that the declarant had personal knowledge and never recanted, the court focused it analysis on factors (2) and (4). The court found that the trial court’s conclusions that these considerations had not been satisfied were made on the basis of inaccurate and incomplete findings of fact used to reach unsupported conclusions of law.
In this Wake County case, defendant appealed his convictions for statutory rape, statutory sexual offense, and indecent liberties with a child, arguing the admission of hearsay cellphone records violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The Court of Appeals agreed, vacating the judgment and remanding for a new trial.
In 2022, defendant came to trial for having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl during the summer of 2019. At trial, the State offered cellphone records showing calls between a number associated with defendant and a number associated with the victim as Exhibits #2 and #3. Defendant was subsequently convicted of all charges, and defendant appealed. The Court of Appeals issued an opinion on October 17, 2023, which was subsequently withdrawn and replaced by the current opinion.
Considering defendant’s Sixth Amendment argument, the court quoted State v. Locklear, 363 N.C. 438 (2009), for the concept that the Confrontation Clause “bars admission of direct testimonial evidence, ‘unless the declarant is unavailable to testify and the accused had a prior opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.’” Slip Op. at 7-8. When determining whether a defendant’s Confrontation Clause rights were violated, courts apply a three-part test: “(1) whether the evidence admitted was testimonial in nature; (2) whether the trial court properly ruled the declarant was unavailable; and, (3) whether defendant had an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.” Id. at 8. Here, “[t]he trial court’s findings answered the first and second factors . . . in the affirmative and the third factor in the negative,” meaning “the evidence should have been excluded.” Id. at 9.
The court went on to explain why the admission of the two exhibits was improper under the residual exception in Rule of Evidence 803(24), noting that “[t]he primary purpose of the court-ordered production of and preparation of the data records retained and provided by Verizon was to prepare direct testimonial evidence for Defendant’s trial.” Id. at 13. Because defendant was “not given the prior opportunity or at trial to challenge or cross-examine officials from Verizon, who had purportedly accumulated this evidence . . . their admission as such violated Defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause.” Id.
After establishing that admission of the exhibits was error, the court explained that the State could not meet the burden of showing the error was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” as required for constitutional errors. Id. at 14. As a result, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for a new trial.
Defendants Molly Martens Corbett (“Molly”) and Thomas Michael Martens (“Tom”), daughter and father, were convicted of second degree murder in the death of Molly’s husband, Jason Corbett (“Jason”). Evidence at trial established that Tom attempted to stop Jason from choking Molly by hitting Jason with an aluminum baseball bat. Molly also hit Jason with a brick paver. Jason’s skull was fractured from multiple blows and he died at the scene. Jason’s children from a previous marriage, Jack and Sarah Corbett, ages 11 and 8, were at home and sleeping at the time of the altercation. Jack and Sarah’s mother had died unexpectedly when they were very young, and they considered Molly to be their mother.
(1) Defendants argued that the trial court abused its discretion by denying their Motion for Appropriate Relief (MAR), as well as their request for an evidentiary hearing, because competent evidence demonstrated that certain jurors “committed gross and pervasive misconduct in their private discussions of the case”; jurors engaged in “private discussions” amongst themselves prior to deliberations; and several jurors’ statements during post-trial media interviews showed that they improperly considered and formed opinions about Molly’s mental health. The court rejected this argument, characterizing the defendants’ allegations as being, at best, general, speculative, and conclusory. Furthermore, the court concluded that even if the trial court were to hold an evidentiary hearing, which it was not required to do, precedent prohibiting verdict impeachment would bar the defendants from presenting any admissible evidence to prove the truth of their allegations.
(2) Defendants asserted that the State failed to present substantial evidence to rebut or contradict Molly’s exculpatory handwritten statement, which the State introduced, establishing that Molly and Tom acted in lawful self-defense and defense of others. The Court of Appeals disagreed.
The State was required to present substantial evidence sufficient to convince a rational trier of fact that the defendants did not act in self-defense. The appellate court determined that the case was not entirely predicated on Molly’s statement that she and Tom acted in self-defense and defense of each other. Rather, the State presented substantial circumstantial evidence from which a rational juror could reach a contrary conclusion, including that: (1) Jason suffered at least twelve blows to the head; (2) Tom had no visible injuries and Molly had only a “light redness” on her neck; (3) Jason was unarmed when the altercation occurred; (4) Jason’s children remained asleep throughout the entire altercation; (5) EMS, paramedics, and law enforcement responders observed that some of the blood on Jason’s body had dried, and that Jason’s body felt cool; (6) Tom told a coworker that he hated Jason; and (7) Jason had a life insurance policy, of which Molly was the named beneficiary.
(3) The Court of Appeals concluded, over a dissent, that certain evidentiary errors were so prejudicial as to inhibit the defendants’ ability to present a full and meaningful defense.
(a) The Court of Appeals held that the trial court erroneously concluded that statements Jack and Sarah Corbett made to workers at a children’s advocacy center were inadmissible under the hearsay exception for medical diagnosis or treatment. At the time of trial, Jack and Sarah had been taken to Ireland to live with their aunt and uncle. The appellate court determined that their statements at the advocacy center satisfied the two-part test for admissibility established in State v. Hinnant, 351 N.C. 277 (2000): (1) the children made the statements to obtain medical diagnosis or treatment; and (2) the statements were reasonably pertinent to medical diagnosis or treatment. The court explained that the child-friendly atmosphere and the separation of the examination rooms did not indicate that the children’s statements during the interviews were not intended for medical purposes. The children were informed before their interviews that they would be receiving medical interviews together with physical examinations as part of their full evaluations at the facility. The interviewers asked non-leading, open-ended questions, instructed the children that they should not “guess at anything” and emphasized the overall significance of the child medical evaluations that they would be receiving. In addition, the court concluded that the children’s statements were reasonably pertinent to medical treatment or diagnosis. Following their forensic medical interviews, Sarah and Jack were examined by a pediatrician who diagnosed both children as “victim[s] of child abuse based on exposure to domestic violence” and recommended that they “receive mental health services” as treatment.
Moreover, the court concluded that even if the children’s forensic medical interview statements were inadmissible under the medical diagnosis or treatment exception to the rule against hearsay, they (along with statements the children made to DSS workers) were admissible under the residual hearsay exception.
(b) Stuart James, the State’s expert witness in bloodstain pattern analysis, testified at trial about untested blood spatter on the underside hem of Tom’s boxer shorts and the bottom of Molly’s pajama pants. The defendants argued that this testimony was not the product of reliable principles and methods applied reliably to the facts of this case. The Court of Appeals agreed.
While James was “unquestionably qualified to provide expert testimony on the subject” of blood spatter, he did not follow the reliability protocol establish in a treatise he coauthored on the subject. First, these particular stains were not tested for the presence of blood. Second, though James said it was the “best practice” for an analyst to view a photograph of the person wearing the blood-spattered clothes, he never viewed a photograph of Tom “wearing just the boxer shorts.” James further testified that the State provided him with just one photograph of Molly wearing the pajama pants, and that it was not readily apparent from that photograph how the pants actually fit Molly on the night of the incident. The court found James’s failure to follow the reliability standards and protocol prescribed in his own treatise as inherently suspect. It concluded that James’s testimony was based upon insufficient facts and data, and, accordingly, could not have been the product of reliable principles and methods applied reliably to the facts of the case.
The court determined that James's testimony “had the powerful effect of bolstering the State’s claim that Jason was struck after and while he was down and defenseless.” But, given the flawed methodology, the testimony could only serve to unduly influence the jury to reach a conclusion that it was fully capable of reaching on its own.
(c) The defendants argued that the trial court erred in striking Tom’s testimony that, during the altercation, he “hear[d] Molly scream[,] ‘Don’t hurt my dad.’ ” The Court of Appeals agreed. The court reasoned that Molly’s statement was admissible for the non-hearsay purpose of illustrating Tom’s then-existing state of mind. This was “a particularly relevant issue” in light of the defendants’ claims of self-defense and defense of another.
(d) Tom argued that the trial court committed reversible error by instructing the jury that he would not be entitled to the benefit of self-defense or defense of a family member if the jury found that he were the initial aggressor in the altercation with Jason. The Court of Appeals agreed.
First, the appellate court stated that the trial court could not have based its ruling on Tom’s decision to arm himself with the baseball bat before joining the altercation. The mere fact that a defendant was armed is not evidence that he was the aggressor if he did not unlawfully use his weapon.
Moreover, the court deemed it significant that Jason was the first to employ deadly force. Tom testified that from the moment he opened the bedroom door, “Jason had his hands around Molly’s neck,” and he said he was going to kill her. Jason subsequently put Molly in a “very tight chokehold” and Tom noticed that Molly “was no longer wiggling. She was just weight, being dragged back into the hallway.”
Because Tom did not aggressively and willingly enter into the fight without legal excuse or provocation, the Court of Appeals determined that the trial court erred by instructing the jury on the aggressor doctrine. The error, the court reasoned, very likely prejudiced Molly as well as Tom, since the jury was instructed that it could find her guilty under an acting-in-concert theory.
One judge concurred in part and dissented in part. The judge concurred that the trial court did not err by denying defendants’ request for an evidentiary hearing on their MAR and the MAR itself or by denying defendants’ motions to dismiss for insufficient evidence. The judge dissented from the remainder of the majority opinion leading to its conclusion that the defendants are entitled to a new trial.
In this child sexual assault case, the trial court did not err by admitting hearsay statements of the victim. At issue were several statements by the child victim. In all of them, the victim said some version of “daddy put his weiner in my coochie.”
First, the trial court admitted the victim’s statements to the defendant’s parents, Gabrielle and Keith, as a present sense impression and an excited utterance and under the residual exception to Rule 804. The court reviewed this matter for plain error. The court began by finding that the victim’s statements were inadmissible as excited utterances. Although it found that the delay between the defendant’s acts and the victim’s statements does not bar their admission as excited utterances, it concluded that the State presented insufficient evidence to establish that the victim was under the stress of the startling event at the time she made the statements. In fact, the State presented no evidence of the victim’s stress. Next, the court considered the present sense impression exception to the hearsay rule. Present sense impressions, it explained, are statements describing or explaining an event or condition made while the declarant was perceiving the event or condition, or immediately thereafter. Here, the trial court erred by admitting the statements as present sense impressions because the record lacked evidence of exactly when the sexual misconduct occurred. However, the statements were properly admitted under the residual exception to Rule 804. There is a six-part test for admitting statements under the residual exception. Here, the trial court failed to make any conclusions regarding the second part of that test, whether the hearsay is covered by any of the exceptions listed in Rule 804(b)(1)-(4). Additionally, with respect to the third part of the test—whether the hearsay statement was trustworthy—the trial court failed to include in the record findings of fact and conclusions of law that the statements possess circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. Although the trial court determined that the statements possess a guarantee of trustworthiness, it found no facts to support that conclusion. This was error. However, the court went on to conclude that the record established the required guarantees of trustworthiness. Specifically: the victim had personal knowledge of the events; the victim had no motivation to fabricate the statements; the victim never recanted; and the victim was unavailable because of her lack of memory of the events. The court noted that in this case the parties had stipulated that the victim was unavailable due to lack of memory, not due to an inability to distinguish truth from fantasy. Additionally, the court concluded that the defendant suffered no prejudice from the trial court’s failure to explicitly state that none of the other Rule 804 exceptions applied. Having concluded that the statements had a sufficient guarantee of trustworthiness, the court found that the trial court did not err by admitting the statements under the Rule 804 residual exception.
Second, the trial court admitted statements by the victim to Adrienne Opdike, a former victim advocate at the Children’s Advocacy and Protection Center, under the residual exception of Rule 804. Referring to its analysis of the victim’s statements to Gabrielle and Keith, the court concluded that the statement to Opdike has sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting it under the Rule 804 residual exception.
Third, the trial court admitted statements by the victim to a relative, Bobbi, as a present sense impression and under the Rule 804 residual exception. The court reviewed this issue for plain error. Relying on its analysis with respect to the victim’s statements to Gabrielle and Keith, the court held that the trial court erred by admitting the statement to Bobbi as a present sense impression. However, the trial court did not err, or abuse its discretion, in admitting the statement under the Rule 804 residual exception. The trial court adequately performed the six-part analysis that applies to the residual exception and the statement has sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness
Fourth, the trial court admitted statements by the victim to Amy Walker Mahaffey, a registered nurse in the emergency room, under the medical diagnosis and treatment exception. Although it found the issue a close one, the court determined that it need not decide whether the trial court erred by admitting the statement under this exception because even if error occurred, the defendant failed to show prejudice. Specifically, the trial court properly admitted substantially identical statements made by the victim to others.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by sustaining the State’s objection to a defense proffer of a co-defendant’s hearsay statement indicating that he and the defendant acted in self-defense. The statement was not admissible under Rule 804(b)(3) (statement against interest exception). To be admissible under that rule, (1) the statement must be against the declarant’s interest, and (2) corroborating circumstances must indicate its trustworthiness. As to the second prong, there must be an independent, non-hearsay indication of trustworthiness. There was no issue about whether the statement satisfied the first prong. However, as to the second, there was no corroborating evidence. Furthermore, the co-defendant had a motive to lie: he was he friends with the defendant, married to the defendant’s sister, and had an incentive to exculpate himself. Nor was the statement admissible under the Rule 804(b)(5) catchall exception. Applying the traditional six-part residual exception analysis, the court concluded that, for the reasons noted above, the statement lacked circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness.