Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
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State v. Thompson, ___ N.C. App. ___, 792 S.E.2d 177 (Oct. 18, 2016)
In this kidnapping and rape case, the defendant’s confrontation rights were not violated when the trial court admitted, for the purposes of corroboration, statements made by deceased victims to law enforcement personnel. The statements were admitted to corroborate statements made by the victims to medical personnel. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that because the statements contained additional information not included in the victims’ statements to medical personnel, they exceeded the proper scope of corroborative evidence and were admitted for substantive purposes. The court noted in part, “the mere fact that a corroborative statement contains additional facts not included in the statement that is being corroborated does not render the corroborative statement inadmissible.”