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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(1) No gross impropriety occurred in closing argument in the guilt-innocence phase of a capital trial when the prosecutor (a) improperly expressed his personal belief that there was overwhelming evidence of guilt; (b) improperly injected his personal opinion that a stab wound to the victim’s...
The defendant was convicted of taking indecent liberties with a minor, charges that arose from sexual assaults against his daughters. During closing argument, the prosecutor said that the defendant’s excuse for possibly touching his daughters’ breasts—that he lacked feeling in his hands...
The defendant was convicted in a jury trial of multiple counts of statutory rape of a child, statutory sex offense with a child, and taking indecent liberties with a child. The trial court sentenced the defendant to 300 to 420 months of imprisonment and ordered lifetime satellite-based...
In this felon in possession of a firearm case, the court held that although some of the prosecutor’s statements were improper, they were not so improper as to deprive the defendant of a fundamentally fair trial.
The court first determined that, in context, the prosecutor’s use of the...
In this murder case, the trial court did not err by failing to intervene ex mero motu during the State’s closing argument. The defendant argued that the prosecutor’s closing arguments injected the prosecutor’s personal beliefs, appealed to the jury’s passion, and led the jury away from the...
In this DWI case the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred by failing to intervene ex mero motu to statements made by the prosecutor in closing argument. The court found the defendant’s argument to be “meritless at best,” noting that the statements at issue were...
(1) The prosecutor’s statement, which was clarified after objection, was not in violation of the law or calculated to mislead or prejudice the jury. After the trial court sustained defense counsel’s objection to the prosecutor’s statement about the victim, “I think she is telling the truth,” the...
In this murder case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by overruling the defendant’s objections to the State’s closing argument. Although the prosecutor’s remarked that the case was one of “the most gruesome and violent murders this community has ever seen,” the comment related...
The trial court did not err by failing to intervene ex mero motu when, in a triple homicide case, the prosecutor argued, among other things, “If that . . . isn’t murder, I don’t know what is” and “I know when to ask for the death penalty and when not to. This isn’t the first case, it’s the ten...