State v. James Robinson
Syllabus
The defendant, James Robinson, appealed from a March 29, 2021 judgment of conviction and commitment on three counts of first-degree sexual assault entered following a jury trial. On appeal, the defendant contended that: (1) the trial justice violated his constitutional right to present a defense by excluding certain expert testimony (2) the trial justice erroneously instructed the jury that there was no need for the complaining witness's testimony to be corroborated in order to support a guilty verdict even though the complaining witness did not testify explicitly as to penetration and (3) the trial justice improperly limited the redirect examination of the defendant. <br><br>The Supreme Court held that the trial justice did not abuse his discretion in excluding the proposed expert testimony pursuant to Rule 401 of the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence. In addition, the Court determined that the trial justice did not err when instructing the jury as to the corroboration issue. Finally, the Court held that the trial justice did not abuse his discretion in limiting the redirect examination of the defendant.<br><br>Accordingly, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court.
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- holding that “[o]n a motion to dismiss, courts require enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible . . . .”
- noting that intrusion on executive’s national security authority raises “grave concerns about the separation of powers” dictated by the Constitution and, thus, counsels hesitation in extending Bivens
- reasoning that a litigant cannot simply allege the existence of a conspiracy to skirt the TVPA’s state action requirement
- explaining that “federal system of checks and balances provides means to consider allegedly unconstitutional execu-five policy, but a [judicially created] private action for money damages against individual policymakers is not one of them”
- noting that intrusion on executive’s national security authority raises “grave concerns about the separation of powers” dictated by the Constitution and, thus, counsels hesitation in extending Bivens
- stating that “complexity” of remedial immigration scheme created (and frequently amended) by Congress would ordinarily warrant “strong inference that Congress intended the judiciary to stay its hand and refrain from creating a Bivens action in this context”
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
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