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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In this assault case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing portions of the defendant’s telephone call, made from jail, to his grandmother into evidence but refusing to allow the defendant to offer other portions from the same call into evidence. The defendant argued that the trial court’s ruling violated the rule of completeness. The admitted portions of the telephone conversation show that the defendant had certain knowledge of the crime that only the perpetrator would know. The defendant sought to introduce an additional portion of the conversation in which the defendant’s grandmother said, “you didn’t do it,” and the defendant responded, “I know.” The court concluded that the defendant’s exculpatory statement to his grandmother was neither explanatory of nor relevant to the admitted statements.
In this case involving convictions for attempted first-degree murder, statutory sex offense with a child by an adult, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, first-degree kidnapping, and taking indecent liberties with a child, although the trial court erred by preventing the defendant from cross-examining the State’s witnesses concerning the defendant’s admission and attempt to help investigators rescue the victim during his post-arrest interrogation, the error was harmless. The case involved the defendant’s abduction of a six-year-old girl and related conduct including binding the child to a tree with a chain around her neck. The defendant asserted that the trial court’s limitation on cross-examination violated his constitutional rights to due process, a fair trial and right to silence. The State elicited testimony from law enforcement officers about the defendant’s pre-arrest statements. It did not however elicit any testimony regarding the post-arrest interrogation of him, and sought to prevent the defendant from introducing any evidence from the State’s witnesses regarding the post-arrest interrogation during cross-examination. According to the State, the pre-arrest interview of the defendant was separate from the post-arrest interrogation that occurred the next day. The trial court agreed with the State and prevented the defendant from questioning the State’s witnesses, including Detective Sorg, regarding the defendant’s post-arrest interrogation. After the State rested, the issue of the defense presenting evidence regarding the post-arrest interrogation arose again, specifically with respect to calling Sorg as a defense witness. According to the State, the testimony would include self-serving statements by the defendant from a completely different interview that constituted hearsay. The State asserted that if the defense wanted to present evidence about what the defendant said during those interviews, he had to take the stand. The trial court agreed and ruled that the defense could not question Sorg on anything related to the post-arrest interrogation. The defendant took the stand and testified about that interrogation.
The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the cross-examination should have been allowed under Rule 106, to prevent the jury from being misled or deceived by the evidence presented regarding the pre-arrest interview. The purpose of Rule 106’s completeness rule is to ensure that misleading impressions created by taking matters out of context are corrected. Here, there was no nexus between the interview and the post-arrest interrogation that would require evidence of the post-arrest interrogation to explain or add context to the earlier interview. Thus the trial court did not err by concluding that the two events were discrete. Moreover, Rule 106 is limited to writings and recorded statements. Here, the defense did not seek to introduce any such materials; rather, the defense simply wanted to question the State’s witnesses about that interrogation during cross-examination.
Considering Rule 611, which addresses the proper scope of cross-examination, the court found that the trial court abused its discretion by disallowing the evidence. Rule 611 provides that a witness may be cross-examined on any relevant matter, and here the evidence that the defendant sought to elicit from the State’s witnesses was relevant. However, the court went on to conclude that the trial court’s error was harmless given the overwhelming evidence of guilt.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding statements from the defendant’s custodial interviews on April 23rd and 25th while admitting statements from a third custodial interview on April 26th. On appeal the defendant argued that his prior statements should have been admitted under Rule 106 because they would have enhanced the jury’s understanding of the third statement. The defendant failed to demonstrate that the third statement was out of context when it was introduced and that the two prior statements were either explanatory of or relevant to the third.
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting a more complete version of a detective’s notes after the defendant opened the door by asking about one portion of those notes. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that it was improper to admit the notes under Rule 106 (remainder of or related writings or recorded statements) because the State’s request to do so was not done contemporaneously with the original cross-examination of the detective. The court went on to find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 in admitting the notes.