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 Jackson County case, defendant appealed his convictions for felony obtaining property by false pretenses and felony identity fraud, arguing error in (1) admitting ATM videos of defendant that were not properly authenticated, and (2) allowing lay-opinion testimony from an officer identifying defendant in the videos. The Court of Appeals found no error.
When defendant’s mother went missing in January 2022, the sheriff’s office began investigating her disappearance, and they eventually obtained records from Wells Fargo containing videos from ATMs where withdrawals were made from her account. These videos showed defendant making withdrawals, and later when defendant was apprehended, his mother’s credit and debit cards were found on his person. At trial, the State showed stills from these videos, and an officer testified as to the videos and identifying defendant as the person appearing in them. Defense counsel did not object at trial to the admission of these videos or the identification of defendant.
Beginning with (1), the Court of Appeals explained that Rule of Evidence 901 governed admitting the videos, and here defendant only challenged the admission of the still images from these videos. Although this was a novel question, the court rejected the challenge, noting the State laid adequate foundation for the video extractions and “that the trial court properly authenticated the ATM videos as admissible evidence because their derivative photos were ‘nothing more than a series of static images appearing at a given frame rate.’” Slip Op. at 8 (quoting United States v. Clotaire, 963 F.3d 1288 (2020)).
In (2), the court noted that Rule of Evidence 701 governed the lay testimony, and under State v. Collins, 216 N.C. App. 249 (2011), the officer needed some superior level of familiarity with the defendant to justify his testimony identifying the defendant or the testimony would be invading the province of the jury. The court concluded that the evidence here supported the familiarity required by Collins, as the officer “had interacted with Defendant on multiple occasions as part of that preexisting investigation” into his mother’s disappearance. Slip Op. at 10.
In this Rowan County case, defendant appealed his convictions for statutory rape of a child fifteen years old or younger, statutory sex offense with a child fifteen years old or younger, and indecent liberties with a child, arguing (1) error in admitting an hour-long video interview of the victim as substantive evidence, and (2) ineffective assistance of counsel. The Court of Appeals found no error and no ineffective assistance of counsel.
In the fall of 2017, defendant began having sexual contact with the victim, a fifteen-year-old girl who was friends with his daughter. The victim attended church with defendant’s family and frequently spent the night at his house. Eventually the relationship progressed to intercourse, and defendant told the victim he had received a vasectomy. Law enforcement learned of the relationship, and the victim was taken to a child advocacy center for a recorded interview with a forensic interviewer. At trial, the State introduced the hour-long interview as Exhibit 2, and the trial court overruled defendant’s objection to hearsay, ruling the video was admissible under Rule of Evidence 803(4) (Statements for Purposes of Medical Diagnosis or Treatment). The State also introduced a photo from defendant’s phone of a “home vasectomy test” as Exhibit 3, and referenced this photo during closing argument to support the idea defendant was showing the photo to the victim to alleviate her concerns about intercourse. Defendant did not object to the photo or the closing argument.
Taking up (1), the Court of Appeals examined the relevant precedent for Rule 803(4), including State v. McLaughlin, 246 N.C. App. 306 (2016), a case where “statements made by a child victim during a videotaped interview to a nurse at a child advocacy center were admissible hearsay,” and several other cases that defined the lines of admissibility for child victim interviews. Slip Op. at 11. After establishing the bounds of the hearsay exception, the court explored the interview in question, concluding that the victim knew she was giving statements for medical diagnosis or treatment, the interview occurred along with a medical examination, the interviewer’s questions were primarily for attending to the victim’s health and safety, and “[the victim’s] statements were reasonably pertinent to her diagnosis and treatment.” Id. at 16. These factors supported admitting the recording under Rule 803(4), and the court found no error.
Moving to (2), defendant argued that his counsel was ineffective because they failed to object to the admission of Exhibit 3 and the references to it during the State’s closing argument. The court disagreed, explaining that defendant could not demonstrate prejudice because admission of the photo was proper, and an adequate evidentiary basis supported the closing argument (i.e., the admitted photo along with supplementary testimony).
The trial court did not commit plain error by admitting for illustrative purposes a Facebook picture of the defendant and an accomplice in which the defendant’s middle finger was extended. At trial the State called a detective who testified that the victim showed him a picture of the defendant and the accomplice on the defendant’s Facebook page for identity purposes. The detective printed that picture and it was admitted at trial for illustrative purposes, over the defendant’s objection. The trial court properly admitted the photograph pursuant to G.S. 8-97 to illustrate the detective’s testimony that the victim used the photograph to identify the defendant and his accomplice. The photograph was properly authenticated and the trial court gave a limiting instruction as to its use.
In this armed robbery case, the trial court did not err by admitting photographs for illustrative purposes. The photographs were admitted solely to illustrate the testimony of witnesses and the trial court appropriately instructed the jury. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that photographs admitted for illustrative purposes must be authenticated in the same manner as photographs admitted as substantive evidence.