This post summarizes published criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during May 2025. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit cases are available here.
Phil Dixon
News Roundup
Multiple acts of mass violence plagued the country this week. In Boulder, Colorado on Sunday, a man attacked a group of people demonstrating on behalf of Israeli hostages held by Hamas with a “makeshift flamethrower” and Molotov cocktails, resulting in injuries to fifteen people. The suspect has been charged with federal hate crimes, attempted murder, and more, along with state offenses, according to this report. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a woman was killed and six people were injured following a shooting on Sunday evening in Boom Island Park. Officers described the scene there as “akin to a war zone.” At least two shooters are suspected of the attack and remain at large. Closer to home, a man was arrested and charged with attempted murder in connection with a Sunday mass shooting at a house party near Hickory, North Carolina. More suspects are being sought. The incident, which involved at least 80 shots being fired, led to the death of one man and injuries to eleven others. In downtown Asheville, NC, a gunfight between two men on Sunday resulted in the death of one of the shooters and several injured people, according to this Citizen Times report. Read on for more criminal law news.
News Roundup
A woman was babysitting a child near Great Bend, Kansas, when the child she was watching complained of a monster under the bed. Seeking to assuage the child’s fear, the babysitter checked under the bed only to find a man hiding there. After a tussle with the babysitter, the man left the home and evaded capture until the next day, when local deputies located and arrested him. The man had recently posted bond on charges of threat crimes, domestic violence, and violating a protective order. He is now being held on no bond and is facing burglary, aggravated assault, and child endangerment charges. The AP has the story, here. Read on for more criminal law news.
GiveUNC: Help Support the SOG
Today is GiveUNC day, the university’s annual one-day fundraising event for alumni, faculty, staff, supporters, and fans of Carolina to contribute to UNC programs and causes that they find most meaningful and impactful. UNC Chapel Hill is truly a unique and remarkable place, and we could not do it without you. To quote from the … Read more
Spring 2025 Cannabis Update
I have been covering developments around the legalization of hemp in North Carolina since 2018. Never did I suspect then that I would still be working on the topic all this time later, but here we are. My last post on In Re: J.B.P. covered the then most recent developments around probable cause and the odor of cannabis. That opinion was withdrawn and has yet to reissue, but subsequent cases have basically affirmed the logic on which the case was decided. This month, the Court of Appeals released State v. Ruffin, COA24-276, ___ N.C. App. ___ (March 5, 2025), weighing in on evidentiary challenges to opinion evidence identifying a substance as marijuana, as well as on jury instructions for marijuana cases. This post examines these and other recent legal developments impacting the state’s criminal cannabis law. Read on for the details.
Machine-Generated Data, Lab Tests, and the Confrontation Clause
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits the use of testimonial hearsay statements by an unavailable witness at a criminal trial, as does its state counterpart in Article I, Sec. 23 of the North Carolina Constitution. A hearsay statement is an out-of-court statement offered for its truth. A statement is testimonial if the primary purpose of the statement was to establish past facts for use at a later prosecution. Ohio v. Clark, 576 U.S. 237, 245 (2015). The Confrontation Clause does not protect against the admission of nontestimonial statements (although hearsay statements still must meet an exception or exemption). In a recent decision, the North Carolina Supreme Court analyzed a challenge to the admission of the defendant’s phone records offered by the State at trial. Overruling the Court of Appeals on the point, the North Carolina Supreme Court found that the phone records were nontestimonial as purely machine-generated data.” The case is a good reminder of the distinctions between testimonial and nontestimonial statements and may have implications for future confrontation issues. Read on for the details.
News Roundup
We have covered the extensive post-conviction and appellate proceedings of Richard Glossip’s death sentence many times before on the blog (most recently here). Glossip has been on death row in Oklahoma since his 1998 conviction for allegedly orchestrating the brutal killing of a hotel owner. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Glossip a new trial after finding that the prosecution knowingly failed to correct false and misleading testimony at trial. Specifically, the prosecution knew its star witness, Sneed, was lying when he denied having seen a psychiatrist and denied having been prescribed lithium, a medicine typically used to treat severe mental illnesses. Sneed admitted to killing the victim and agreed to testify against Glossip in exchange the State taking the death penalty off the table for Sneed’s role in the crime. According to the 5-3 majority: “Correcting Sneed’s lie would have undermined his credibility and revealed his willingness to lie under oath. . . Hence, there was a reasonable likelihood that correcting Sneed’s testimony would have affected the judgment of the jury.” Justices Alito and Thomas dissented, while Justice Barrett concurred and would have sent the case back to the Oklahoma appellate court (Justice Gorsuch recused himself from the case). If tried again, it would be Glossip’s third capital trial related to the killing. SCOTUSblog has the story here, or you can read the case for yourself here. Read on for more criminal law news.