blank

Is the Translation or Interpretation of Another’s Statements Hearsay?

Suppose a person who speaks only Spanish is stopped on suspicion of impaired driving by two officers, Officer A and Officer B.  Officer A speaks and understands only English. Officer B is fluent in English and Spanish.  Officer B asks the defendant if he has been drinking.  The defendant states, in Spanish, that he drank … Read more

blank

Court Holds that Probable Cause Hearing Provides a Prior Opportunity to Cross Examine

As blog readers well know, the new Crawford confrontation clause rule provides that absent an exception or a waiver of rights, testimonial hearsay statements of a declarant who does not testify at trial may not be admitted unless the witness is unavailable and there has been a prior opportunity for cross-examination. This is a tough … Read more

blank

Per se impairment, reasonable doubt, margins of error, and all that lies between

G.S. 20-138.1(a)(2) prohibits a person from driving a vehicle upon a highway, street or public vehicular area after having consumed sufficient alcohol that the person has, at any relevant time after the driving, an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more. S.L. 2006-253 amended this subsection to provide, effective for offenses committed on or after December 1, … Read more

Connected Crimes

The court of appeals decided State v. Howard earlier this week. The opinion addresses several issues, but I want to focus on what is sometimes called the connected crimes doctrine, which allows the state to introduce evidence of uncharged crimes closely related to a charged offense notwithstanding Rule 404(b)’s limitations on evidence of uncharged bad … Read more

blank

On the Horizon: U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Another Substitute Analyst Case

In a post here, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (2011), holding that substitute analyst testimony in an impaired driving case violated Crawford. Bullcoming was no great surprise in light of the Court’s prior decision in Melendez-Diaz. However, less than one week after the … Read more

References to the Defendant’s Assertion of Miranda Rights

Sometimes the state wants to introduce evidence that the defendant invoked his right to remain silent or his right to counsel under Miranda. If the prosecution’s purpose is simply to imply the defendant’s guilt, we know that’s improper from Miranda itself: “In accord with our decision today, it is impermissible to penalize an individual for … Read more

blank

Bullcoming and Substitute Analysts

On June 23rd, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bullcoming v. New Mexico. As anticipated, the case turned out to be a straightforward application of Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. __, 129 S. Ct. 2527 (2009) (forensic laboratory reports are testimonial; absent a stipulation, the prosecution may not introduce such a report without a live witness … Read more