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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In this Wake County case, the Supreme Court affirmed per curiam the unpublished Court of Appeals opinion State v. Johnson, COA19-529-2, 275 N.C. App. 980 (table), 2020 WL 7974001 (Dec. 31, 2020). Previously, the...
In this Cleveland County case, defendant appealed his convictions for first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, and attempted robbery, arguing (1) error in denying his motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence based upon the impossibility of a witness’s testimony, and (2) inadequate...
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 common law robbery case, the State laid a proper foundation for the admission of evidence located by a tracking dog, “Carlo.” Citing precedent, the court stated the four-factor test used to establish reliability of a tracking dog as follows:
[T]he...
In this impaired driving second-degree murder case, the trial court did not err by excluding evidence that a child victim was not properly restrained in a child seat. Although G.S. 20-127.1 provides that passengers less than 16 years old must be properly secured in a vehicle, the statute also...
The trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s motion to exclude DNA evidence. The alleged crime occurred at a convenience store. An officer collected blood samples from the scene, including blood from cigarette cartons. The defendant argued that the cigarette cartons from which samples...
In a murder case, the trial court did not err by allowing law enforcement officers to testify that they had observed a small hair on the wall at the murder scene and that the hair appeared to have tissue attached. The hair was not collected as evidence. The court concluded that the State is not...
A victim’s statement to his mother, made in the emergency room approximately 50 minutes after a shooting and identifying the defendant as the shooter, was a present sense impression under Rule 803(1). The time period between the shooting and the statement was sufficiently brief. The court noted...
In a larceny of motor vehicle case, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that testimony by the vehicle owners regarding the value of the stolen vehicles invaded the province of the jury as fact-finder, stating: “the owner of property is competent to testify as to the value of his own...