United States

Appellant argued that the court wrongly allowed the admission of victim’s statements regarding alleged battery by the defendant after defendant was convicted of domestic battery.  The victim made statements to others and did not appear in court or testify at trial; therefore, appellant had no opportunity to cross-examine the victim.  The court held that the victim’s statements were “improperly admitted in violation of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the . . .

Prince and his wife were married for two years.  After their divorce, his wife, Tabitha, moved into her own apartment with their son, Matthew.  Prince began visiting her occasionally without invitation or notice, under the pretext of wanting to see their son.  Despite a restraining order, Prince showed up at her apartment several times.  On one occasion, Prince slashed her tires and defaced her car.  Prince was later indicted for aggravated stalking and malicious property damage.  Prince’s counsel argued that damage to property “is not an act of violence under

In State v. Rangel, 213 N.J. 500 (2013), the New Jersey Supreme Court resolved ambiguity regarding the phrase “aggravated assault on another” located in the first-degree sexual-assault statute, § 2C:14-2(a)(3). In this particular case, the defendant was convicted of first-degree aggravated sexual assault after attacking a woman on the street. The Appellate Division reversed that conviction, interpreting the “on another” language to require that the aggravated assault be directed at a third party rather than the victim of the original crime.

A bus driver was convicted of sexually assaulting three developmentally disabled women, two of whom were passengers on the defendant’s bus route. On appeal, the defendant challenged his conviction on several grounds, one of which was that the trial court erred in precluding him from questioning the victim’s mother about a previous incident that suggested the victim was promiscuous.

Defendant was charged with assault stemming from a domestic violence incident. At his arraignment, the court entered a no-contact order, forbidding defendant to have any contact with his victim for a period of one year. Defendant was found guilty of the assault. He resumed cohabitation with the victim, although both were aware that the no-contact order remained in effect. Two months later, the police department received a hang-up 911 call from the apartment shared by defendant and the victim. The state charged defendant with violation of domestic violence no-contact order (pre-conviction).

Defendant was married to victim for nine years.  After they divorced, defendant allegedly repeatedly called her, and later got into her vehicle and strangled her until she lost consciousness.  When she regained consciousness, she realized that she was in the trunk of her car.  He stopped the car after she kicked the speakers out.  He threatened her and then demanded that they have sex.  She stated she would have sex with him, testifying that she feared he would hurt her.  The next morning she flagged down a police officer who arrested the defendant.  When

The defendant appealed a conviction of manslaughter after stabbing her boyfriend to death, arguing that the state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not act in self-defense based on evidence that she suffered from battered women’s syndrome.

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island rejected the argument that the state’s criminal statute outlawing carnal knowledge of a girl under 16 years of age violated equal protection of the law, even though it created a classification based on sex by designating females as the only possible victims and subjecting only males to conviction under the statute. In rejecting the defendant’s argument, the court applied the rule that sex-based classifications that served important governmental objectives and were substantially related to the achievement of those objectives were not unconstitutional.

In State v. Webster, 2001 S.D. 141, 637 N.W.2d 392, the defendant was convicted of grand theft by deception and appealed, arguing that the State engaged in unconstitutional gender discrimination during jury selection. Specifically, the prosecution used seven of its ten peremptory strikes to remove female jurors.