State v. Kennedy (Signed Opinion)
Annotate this CasePetitioner was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with mercy. This was Petitioner's second appeal of that conviction; his conviction was first upheld on direct appeal to the Supreme Court. In his initial appeal, among other assignments of error, Petitioner asserted that admission of an autopsy report without the accompanying testimony of the authoring pathologist violated his Confrontation Clause rights. As a result of the Supreme Court's decision in State v. Mechling, which overruled Kennedy I as to the Court's holding on the Confrontation Clause issue, Petitioner filed another motion for a new trial. The circuit court denied the motion, and the Supreme Court affirmed, holding that although the admission of the autopsy report and testimony reiterating its contents violated the Confrontation Clause under current caselaw, the errors found by virtue of applying the new rule of Mechling were not redressable by Petitioner, and therefore did not afford him a new trial.
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