181 N.C. App. 287 - State v. Johnson’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

11 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 11 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Defendant does not assert that the trial court violated his rights under Blakely , but that the trial court acted without authority when it fashioned its own remedy to comply with Blakely before our legislature had amended the structured sentencing act. However, the North Carolina Supreme Court recently addressed this issue, where “the trial court allegedly lacked a procedural mechanism by which to submit the challenged aggravating factor to the jury,” and concluded that North Carolina law “permits the submission of aggravating factors to a jury using a special verdict.” State v. Blackwell, 361 N.C. 41, 46 , 638 S.E.2d 452, 456 (2006). A special verdict is a common law procedural device by which the jury may answer specific questions posed by the trial judge that are separate and distinct from the general verdict. Despite the fact that the General Statutes do not specifically authorize the use of special verdicts in criminal trials, it is well-settled under our common law that special verdicts. are permissible in criminal cases. Special verdicts, however, are subject to certain limitations. After the United States Supreme Court decision in United States v. Gaudin, [ 515 U.S. 506 , 115 S.Ct. 2510 , 132 L.Ed. 2d 444 (1995)] a special verdict in a criminal case must not be a true special verdict — one by which the jury only makes findings on the factual components of the essential elements alone — as this practice violates a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury t”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 183 N.C. App. 585 - State v. Heinricy