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
Navigate using the table of contents to the left or by using the search box below. Use quotations for an exact phrase search. A search for multiple terms without quotations functions as an “or” search. Not sure where to start? The 5 minute video tutorial offers a guided tour of main features – Launch Tutorial (opens in new tab).
For about two years, Counterman, the petitioner in this case, sent hundreds of Facebook messages to a local artist. The two had never met, and the woman never responded. A number of the messages expressed anger at the artist and envisaged harm upon her. The messages put the artist in fear and...
In this case from Mecklenburg County, the defendant was convicted of violating a domestic violence protective order (“DVPO”) while in possession of a deadly weapon, as well as felony breaking or entering in violation of the DVPO, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault on a female. The...
The facts of this case were previously summarized following the Court of Appeals decision in State v. Taylor, 270 N.C. App. 514 (2020), available here....
Reversing the Court of Appeals, the court held that the cyberbullying statute, G.S. 14-458.1, was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. It concluded that the statute “restricts speech, not merely nonexpressive conduct; that this restriction is content based, not content neutral; and that...
In a case where the defendant was found guilty of violation of a DVPO with a deadly weapon, the court per curiam reversed and remanded for the reasons stated in the dissenting opinion below. In the decision below, State v....
Reversing the court of appeals and holding that a temporary restraining order (TRO) entered pursuant to Rule 65(b) of the N.C. Rules of Civil Procedure on a motion alleging acts of domestic violence in an action for divorce from bed and board was not a valid domestic violence protective order as...
In this Buncombe County case, defendant appealed his conviction for communicating threats, arguing that his words did not constitute a true threat and the trial court erred by denying his motion to dismiss and request for a jury instruction on true threats. The Court of Appeals found no error by...
In this Surry County juvenile case, a petition was filed alleging that the juvenile committed extortion by obtaining a digital image of a victim, without her knowledge or consent, in which she was in only her bra and underwear. The petition also alleged that the juvenile used the image to...
The defendant and victim met on a website arranging “sugar daddy” and “sugar baby” relationships, and the two engaged in a brief, paid, sexual relationship. The victim was a married man with children at the time. Years later, the defendant contacted the man, stating that she planned to write a...
In this Iredell County case, the juvenile, “Sophie,” was adjudicated delinquent for communicating a threat of mass violence on educational property in violation of G.S. 14-277.6 after making a statement, in the presence of four classmates, that she was going to blow up the school. She was...
The trial court failed to make adequate findings of fact to support its orders denying the plaintiffs’ motions for domestic violation protective orders against the defendant, their biological father’s wife. The court noted that state supreme court precedent had interpreted N.C. Rule Civ....
The plaintiff and defendant were in a same-sex dating relationship, and when it ended M.E. sought a domestic violence protective order against T.J. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant had engaged in harassment and threatening conduct, and had access to firearms. At a hearing on the...
The victim in this case was the elected district attorney for the county, and the defendant was an acquaintance who worked in an office building next to the courthouse. After learning that the district attorney would not be pursuing criminal charges in a matter involving the death of a...
Circumstantial evidence indicated that a juvenile wrote “BOMB INCOMING” in a school bathroom. Officers obtained a juvenile petition charging the juvenile with making a false report of mass violence on educational property in violation of G.S. 14-277.5. The petition alleged in pertinent part that...
Concluding that application of the stalking statute to the defendant violated his constitutional free speech rights, the court vacated the convictions. The defendant was convicted of four counts of felony stalking based primarily on the content of posts made to his Google Plus account. On appeal...
(1) The trial court did not err by denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss a felony stalking charge. Felonious stalking occurs when the defendant commits the offense while a court order is in effect prohibiting the conduct at issue. The State presented evidence that at the time of the conduct...
The evidence was sufficient to support the defendant’s conviction of unlawfully entering property operated as a domestic violence safe house by one subject to a protective order in violation of G.S. 50B-4.1(g1). The evidence showed that the defendant drove his vehicle to shelter, parked his car...
The trial court erred by entering judgment and sentencing the defendant on both three counts of habitual violation of a DVPO and one count of interfering with a witness based on the same conduct (sending three letters to the victim asking her not to show up for his court date). The DVPO statute...
The trial court erred by dismissing an indictment charging the defendant with violating an ex parte domestic violence protective order (DVPO) that required him to surrender his firearms. The trial court entered an ex parte Chapter 50B DVPO prohibiting the defendant from contacting his wife and...
In a communicating threats case, the State presented sufficient evidence that a detention officer believed that the defendant—an inmate—would carry out his threats against her.
(1) The trial court committed plain error by instructing the jury on the crime of stalking under the new stalking statute, G.S. 14-277.3A, when the charged course of conduct occurred both before and after enactment of the new statute. The new version of the stalking statute lessened the burden...
The trial court committed plain error by instructing the jury on the crime of stalking under the new stalking statute, G.S. 14-277.3A, when the charged course of conduct occurred both before and after enactment of the new statute. The new version of the stalking statute lessened the burden on...
The trial judge erred by entering a domestic violence protective order. The defendant’s act of hiring a private investigator service to conduct surveillance to determine if the plaintiff was cohabiting does not constitute harassment. There thus was no act of domestic violence.
A consent DVPO that lacked any finding that the defendant committed an act of domestic violence it was void ab initio. The court reasoned: “Without a finding by the trial court that an act of domestic violence had occurred, the trial court had no authority under Chapter 50B to enter an order for...
(COA10-1485). The defendant’s right to be protected from double jeopardy was violated when, after being convicted of felony stalking, he was again charged and convicted of that crime. Because the time periods of the “course of conduct” for both indictments overlapped, the same acts could result...
In a prosecution under the prior version of the stalking statute, there was sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the evidence showed communications to persons other than the alleged victim on all but one occasion, concluding that all of...
The evidence was sufficient to establish that the defendant violated G.S. 14-196(a)(3) by making harassing phone calls. The defendant repeatedly called the victim at work to annoy and harass him. It was not necessary for the State to show that defendant actually spoke with the victim.
The evidence was sufficient to sustain a stalking conviction where it showed that the defendant sent five facsimile messages to the victim’s workplace but the first four did not contain a direct threat. In this regard, the court noted, the case “diverges from those instances in which our courts...