A UNC School of Government Blog
Along with the published cases released by the N.C. Court of Appeals on August 3, 2010, was an unpublished case of note. In State v. Davis, __ N.C. App. __ (Aug. 3, 2010), the court ordered a new trial after finding that the trial judge erred by admitting into evidence an autopsy report prepared by … Read more
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford v. Washington, interest has been growing in the use of two-way video testimony as a method to satisfy the confrontation clause when a witness cannot be present at trial. As readers of this blog know, Crawford held that under the sixth amendment’s confrontation clause, testimonial statements by … Read more
Previously, Jeff and I posted about the post-Melendez-Diaz decisions by the N.C. Court of Appeals in the Brennan and Brewington substitute analyst cases (those posts are available here, here, and here). In Brennan, the court concluded that testimony of a substitute analyst identifying a substance as cocaine base violated the defendant’s confrontation clause rights. Similarly, … Read more
As I have discussed in a number of prior posts [editor’s note: the most recent of those posts is here], the North Carolina courts have been struggling with whether the Confrontation Clause, as interpreted the Court in Crawford v. Washington and Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, allows for the use of substitute analysts. The petition for writ … Read more
In a recent post, I suggested that by establishing a good foundation, the State may be able to overcome a confrontation clause objection to its use a substitute analyst in a drug case. In its recent opinion in State v. Brewington, the N.C. Court of Appeals held that the trial court committed reversible error by … Read more
As summarized in Jeff’s recent blog post, in State v. Brennan, the North Carolina Court of Appeals applied Locklear and Mobley and held that the defendant’s confrontation clause rights were violated by the testimony of a substitute analyst in a drug case. My own summaries of Locklear and Mobley are available here and here. Jeff … Read more
OK, that’s not really the title of this new Administration of Justice Bulletin by my colleague Jessie Smith, but it could be. It’s actually called Understanding the New Confrontation Clause Analysis: Crawford, Davis, and Melendez-Diaz. It’s designed to lay out the law in the clearest possible terms, including a flow chart on page 6 that … Read more
The court of appeals released a new batch of opinions today. I may post on others eventually, but the one that jumped out at me immediately is State v. Brennan. Brennan is a Confrontation Clause case. Most readers of this blog know that Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), breathed new life into the … Read more
The Fourth Circuit decided a case recently involving members of MS-13. The case involves an interesting Confrontation Clause issue regarding the use of gang experts, which I’ll mention at the end of this post, but I thought that the description of the gang itself was compelling enough to warrant a post: La Mara Salvatrucha, otherwise … Read more
In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachussetts, the United States Supreme Court held that forensic laboratory reports—such as those identifying a substance as a controlled substance—are testimonial and subject to the new Crawford Confrontation Clause rule. For more detail on that decision, you can review a paper posted here. Under the Crawford rule, testimonial statements by declarants who … Read more