August 7, 2014
The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are commonly known as the Bill of Rights and were ratified on December 15, 1791. It is remarkable how many of these […]
July 1, 2014
With the amendment of Rule 702 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence in 2011, North Carolina became a Daubert state. That change means that trial judges in this state, […]
June 17, 2014
Must a parent testify against his or her child when called as a witness? Conversely, must a child testify against his or her parent? The answer depends on whether there […]
June 4, 2014
Mumford & Sons has a song called Hopeless Wanderer. When it comes to substitute analysts and the confrontation clause, that song title sums me up, and maybe you as well. […]
June 2, 2014
I’ve had more and more questions about introducing GPS tracking data in criminal trials. When I think about digital evidence, I think about authentication as the first hurdle. This post […]
May 19, 2014
Suppose that the defendant is charged with a gang-related murder. The State seeks to establish that the defendant is a gang member by introducing a photograph that a detective found […]
March 24, 2014
In this, my last post in a long series on hearsay exceptions, I’ll address the Rule 804 exception for statements against penal interest. Rule 804(b)(3) creates a hearsay exception for […]
March 20, 2014
The decades-old state supreme court decision in State v. Knoll, 322 N.C. 535 (1988), dismissing charges against three impaired driving defendants, is confusing. For starters, the Knoll court’s decision hinged […]
March 17, 2014
Rule 804 contains five hearsay exceptions that apply when the declarant is unavailable. I addressed one of them—the residual exception—in a prior post. Another one of the five—statements of family […]
March 10, 2014
In earlier posts I covered the major Rule 803 hearsay exceptions, for which unavailability is immaterial. Rule 804 contains additional hearsay exceptions, but they only apply when the declarant is […]