Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
Table of Contents
Smith's Criminal Case Compendium
About
This compendium includes significant criminal cases by the U.S. Supreme Court & N.C. appellate courts, Nov. 2008 – Present. Selected 4th Circuit cases also are included.
Jessica Smith prepared case summaries Nov. 2008-June 4, 2019; later summaries are prepared by other School staff.
Instructions
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In this second-degree murder case where the defendant’s girlfriend was fatally shot in the eye with a pistol, the trial court did not err by omitting a jury instruction on the defense of accident or by sentencing the defendant as a Class B1 felon. The trial court did not err by omitting an...
The defendant fired a gun from his car toward a park where over a dozen people were playing basketball and hanging out. He was later found asleep in his car in a ditch by a Highway Patrol officer, who arrested him for driving while impaired. He was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder and...
In this second-degree murder case, the trial court erred by sentencing the defendant as a Class BI felon. The jury unanimously convicted the defendant of second-degree murder. The verdict however was silent as to whether the second-degree murder was a Class BI or B2 offense. The court held that...
In this second-degree murder case, the trial court did not err by sentencing the defendant as a Class B1 felon. The defendant argued that the trial court erred because the jury returned a general verdict that failed to specify whether he had been found guilty of a Class B1 or B2 felony. The...