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
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In this Iredell County case, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals decision finding that the trial court complied with G.S. 15A-1201(d)(1) when consenting to defendant’s waiver of the right to a jury trial for habitual felon status.
After the 2014 amendment to the North Carolina...
The defendant was convicted in a bench trial of speeding 94 miles per hour in a 65 mile-per-hour zone. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals determined that even though the trial court failed to follow the procedure set forth in N.C.G.S. § 15A-1201 for waiver of defendant’s right to a...
At the start of his trial on drug charges, the defendant, through counsel, requested to waive his right to trial by jury in favor of a bench trial. The trial judge advised the defendant of the charges and the maximum punishment and asked several questions about the defendant’s request for a...
Because the constitutional amendment permitting waiver of a jury trial only applies to defendants arraigned on or after 1 December 2014, a bench trial was improperly allowed in this case where the defendant was arraigned in February 2014. The session law authorizing the ballot measure regarding...
In this child sexual assault case, the court upheld the defendant’s conviction, obtained after a bench trial. (1) The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court lacked authority to try him without a jury. The defendant asserted that the statute allowing a jury trial waiver...
(1) The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court lacked authority to allow him to waive his right to a trial by jury because he was not arraigned before the effective date of the constitutional amendment and statute allowing such a waiver. The new provision on jury trial...