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.
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In this child abuse case the Court held that statement by the victim, L.P., to his preschool teachers were non-testimonial. In the lunchroom, one of L.P.’s teachers, Ramona Whitley, observed that L.P.’s left eye was bloodshot. She asked him “[w]hat happened,” and he initially said nothing....
Justice Sotomayor, writing for the Court, held that a mortally wounded shooting victim’s statements to first-responding officers were non-testimonial under Crawford. In the early morning, Detroit police officers responded to a radio dispatch that a man had been shot. When they arrived...
On discretionary of a unanimous decision of the Court of Appeals, ___ N.C. App. ___, 801 S.E.2d 696 (2017), in this murder case the court reversed, holding that the Court of Appeals erred by concluding that certain evidence was admitted in violation of the defendant’s confrontation rights. The...
Reversing the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court held that the statements made by an anonymous 911 caller informing the police of a possible incident involving a firearm and describing the suspect were nontestimonial. The circumstances surrounding the caller’s statements objectively indicate...
In this Wayne County case, defendant appealed his conviction for concealment of the death of a child who did not die of natural causes, arguing the State failed to satisfy the corpus delicti rule and error in permitting testimony that the child’s mother was convicted of second-degree...
The defendant was arrested for impaired driving. Because of his extreme intoxication, he was taken to a hospital for medical treatment. The defendant was belligerent and combative at the hospital, and was medicated in an effort to calm his behavior. After the defendant was medically subdued, a...
The defendant fired a gun from his car toward a park where over a dozen people were playing basketball and hanging out. He was later found asleep in his car in a ditch by a Highway Patrol officer, who arrested him for driving while impaired. He was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder and...
In this case involving armed robbery and other charges, the victim’s statements to a responding officer were nontestimonial. When officer Rigsby arrived at the victim’s home to investigate the robbery call, the victim was shaken up, fumbling over his words, and speaking so fast that it sounded...
A witness’s pretrial deposition testimony, taken in preparation of the criminal case, was clearly testimonial for purposes of the Confrontation Clause.
In this child sexual assault case, no confrontation clause violation occurred where the victim’s statements were made for the primary purpose of obtaining a medical diagnosis. After the victim revealed the sexual conduct to his mother, he was taken for an appointment at a Children’s Advocacy...
In this driving while license revoked case, the court held that DMV records were non-testimonial. The documents at issue included a copy of the defendant’s driving record certified by the DMV Commissioner; two orders indefinitely suspending his drivers’ license; and a document attached to the...
In a sex offender residential restriction case, the court held that because GPS tracking reports were non-testimonial business records, their admission did not violate the defendant’s confrontation rights. The GPS records were generated in connection with electronic monitoring of the defendant,...
(1) In a larceny by merchant case, statements made by a deceased Wal-Mart assistant manager to the store’s loss prevention coordinator were non-testimonial. The loss prevention coordinator was allowed to testify that the assistant manager had informed him about the loss of property, triggering...
A non-testifying victim’s statement to a law enforcement officer was testimonial. In the defendant’s trial for kidnapping and other charges, the State introduced statements from a different victim (“the declarant”) who was deceased at the time of trial. The facts surrounding the declarant’s...