Corpus Delicti (November 21, 2011)
Jessica Smith
According to my teenaged kids, “corpus delicti” sounds like something that will get you in trouble if you write about it on a government-sponsored blog. It is, however, an issue […]
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November 21, 2011
According to my teenaged kids, “corpus delicti” sounds like something that will get you in trouble if you write about it on a government-sponsored blog. It is, however, an issue […]
READ POST "Corpus Delicti (November 21, 2011)"November 7, 2011
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 […]
READ POST "Court Holds that Probable Cause Hearing Provides a Prior Opportunity to Cross Examine (November 7, 2011)"September 27, 2011
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 […]
READ POST "Per se impairment, reasonable doubt, margins of error, and all that lies between (September 27, 2011)"September 21, 2011
Eating the evidence might yield a stomach ache but it won’t ensure an acquittal. That is the lesson learned from State v. James, a case recently decided by the N.C. […]
READ POST "Eating the Evidence (September 21, 2011)"September 8, 2011
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, […]
READ POST "Connected Crimes (September 8, 2011)"September 1, 2011
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 […]
READ POST "On the Horizon: U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Another Substitute Analyst Case (September 1, 2011)"August 4, 2011
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 […]
READ POST "References to the Defendant’s Assertion of Miranda Rights (August 4, 2011)"June 29, 2011
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. __, […]
READ POST "Bullcoming and Substitute Analysts (June 29, 2011)"May 23, 2011
It is conference season again at the School of Government, which means that we are doing a lot of presentations for a lot of different groups in the court system. […]
READ POST "Admissibility of Electronic Writings: Emails, Text Messages, and Social Networking Posts (May 23, 2011)"May 19, 2011
The usual way for the State to establish that a person drove while impaired under the per se prong of G.S. 20-138.1 is to introduce the results of a chemical […]
READ POST "Proving the Per Se Prong of Impaired Driving without a Chemical Analysis (May 19, 2011)"