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.
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In this Rowan County case, the Supreme Court majority affirmed the Court of Appeals decision upholding the exclusion of evidence offered by defendants to show other individuals committed the crimes for which defendants were convicted. Defendants were jointly tried and convicted of first-degree...
This Davidson County case involved the sexual abuse of a girl at ages 10 and 13. The defendant was the child’s grandfather. In addition to assaulting the child, the defendant also abused the child’s mother, his daughter. The child’s mother reportedly traded sex with her daughter for drugs from...
Reversing the court of appeals in this murder and robbery case, the court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by prohibiting the defendant from introducing a tape-recorded voice mail message by the defendant’s sister, a witness for the State, to show her bias and attack her...
In this Rockingham County case, defendant appealed his convictions for statutory rape, indecent liberties with a child, and sex act by a substitute parent or guardian, arguing error in admitting expert testimony that the victim’s testimony was not coached, in granting a motion in limine...
In this child sexual assault case, the trial court did not err by finding that the defendant’s proffered testimony was not relevant. The defendant was charged with committing sexual acts on his daughter Sandy while home from the military on compassionate leave. At trial, the defendant attempted...
When a trial court properly determines, pursuant to Evidence Rule 403, that the probative value of evidence about a victim’s sexual history is substantially outweighed by its potential for unfair prejudice, the trial court does not err by excluding the evidence, regardless of whether it falls...
In this cyberbullying case based on electronic messages, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence the defendant’s Facebook posts that, among other things, stated that “there’s no empirical evidence that your Jesus ever existed.” The...
The trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting the defendant’s recorded interview with a police detective. Noting that the fact that evidence is prejudicial to the defendant does not make it unfairly so, the court concluded that the evidence’s probative value was not...
In this murder case, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the probative value of a recorded telephone call made by the defendant to his father was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. During the call, the defendant’s father asked: “Now who you done shot now?”...
In a first-degree murder trial, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to exclude, under Rule 403, evidence of the defendant’s mid-trial escape attempt. The court reasoned: “[T]he jury may have inferred from the fact that defendant attempted to escape that defendant was guilty...
In an identity theft case where the defendant was alleged to have used credit card numbers belonging to several victims, the trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting evidence that the defendant also was in possession of debit and EBT cards belonging other persons to...
The trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting a recording of phone calls between the defendant and other persons that were entirely in Spanish. The defendant argued that because there was one Spanish-speaking juror, the jurors should have been required to consider only...
The trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting, for purposes of corroboration, a testifying witness’s prior consistent statement. The court noted that although the statement was prejudicial to the defendant’s case, mere prejudice is not the determining factor under Rule...
The trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting the defendant’s statement to an arresting officer that if the officer had come later the defendant “would have been gone and you would have never saw me again.”
In a murder case involving a shooting, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by allowing a detective to give lay opinion testimony concerning the calibers of bullets recovered at the crime scene. Although the testimony was prejudicial, the trial judge correctly ruled that its probative...
The trial judge did not err under Rule 403 in excluding evidence of the victim’s alleged false accusation that another person had raped her. The circumstances surrounding that accusation were different from those at issue in the trial and the evidence could have caused confusion.