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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Reversing the Court of Appeals in this first-degree felony murder case, the court held that the trial court did not commit reversible error by failing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offenses of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. The underlying felony for first-degree...
In this Buncombe County case, defendant appealed his conviction for first-degree murder, arguing five separate errors by the trial court and contending the cumulative prejudice of those errors entitled him to a new trial. The Court of Appeals found no error.
In June of 2017, the victim...
In a case where the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, the trial court did not err by failing to submit an instruction on second-degree murder and/or voluntary manslaughter. The defendant argued that the evidence negated premeditation and deliberation. The court disagreed, finding...
(1) In this case in which the defendant was convicted of felony murder with the underlying felony being child abuse, the trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s request to instruct the jury on premeditated and deliberate murder and all lesser included offenses. There was no evidence...
In this felony-murder case the trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s request to instruct on second-degree murder. The underlying felony was armed robbery and the defendant’s own testimony established all the elements of that offense.
Where no evidence negated the State’s proof of first-degree murder, the trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s request for an instruction on second-degree murder.
In a case in which the victim died after consuming drugs provided by the defendant and the defendant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, the trial court did not err by instructing the jury on second-degree murder and the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter. The defendant objected...
In a case in which the defendant was charged with first-degree murder, the trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s request for a second-degree murder charge where there was no evidence to negate the State’s proof of every element of first-degree murder; the defendant’s defense was...
In a case in which the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, the trial court did not err by failing to instruct the jury on second-degree murder. The court found that the record supported the inference that the defendant murdered the victim after premeditation and deliberation. The...
In a case in which the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, the trial court did not err by failing to instruct the jury on second-degree murder. The defendant conceded that the evidence warranted an instruction on first-degree murder. However, he argued that because the evidence...
In a murder case, the trial court did not commit plain error by failing to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of second-degree murder. For reasons discussed in the opinion, the evidence showed that the defendant acted with premeditation and deliberation.
The trial court did not err by declining to instruct the jury on second-degree murder when no evidence negated the State’s evidence of first-degree murder. The defendant argued that the evidence showed that he killed the victim in a “frenzied, crack-fueled explosion” of a long-simmering “rage of...