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.
Instructions
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The defendant was placed on probation in district court pursuant to a formal deferred prosecution agreement under G.S. 15A-1341(a1). A district court judge found him in violation and revoked his deferred prosecution probation. The defendant appealed to superior court for a de novo violation...
Reversing the court of appeals, the court held that on direct appeal from the activation of a suspended sentence, a defendant may not challenge the jurisdictional validity of the indictment underlying his original conviction. The court reasoned that a challenge to the validity of the original...
In this Buncombe County case, defendant appealed an order revoking his probation, arguing the trial court failed to make a finding of good cause to revoke his probation along with other errors. The Court of Appeals agreed with defendant and vacated the trial court’s judgment without remand. ...
In this Caldwell County case, the Court of Appeals denied the state’s motion to dismiss defendant’s appeal as untimely, but found no error with the trial court’s decision to revoke defendant’s probation for violations related to a search of his truck.
In May of 2020, defendant was pulled...
Over a dissent, the court dismissed as moot the defendant’s appeal from a judgment revoking his probation and activating his suspended sentence. After finding that the defendant was not at home during a mandatory curfew on two occasions, that these absences constituted willful violations of...
The court held that it had no authority to consider the defendant’s challenge to the trial court’s imposition of a special condition of probation.
The court declined to consider the defendant’s argument that the trial court had no jurisdiction to revoke his probation because the sentencing court failed to make findings supporting a probation term of more than 30 months. It reasoned that a defendant cannot re-litigate the legality of a...
Defendant had no right to appeal from the trial court’s orders modifying the terms of his probation and imposing Confinement in Response to Violation. For a discussion of this case, see my colleague’s blog post here.
A defendant may not challenge the validity of an indictment in an appeal challenging revocation of probation. In such circumstances, challenging the validity of the original judgment is an impermissible collateral attack.
On appeal from judgment revoking probation, the defendant could not challenge the trial court’s jurisdiction to enter the original judgment as this constituted an impermissible collateral attack on the original judgment.