State v. Spadafore

Neely, Justice:

This is a factually complicated criminal case in which the defendant was convicted of stealing a bulldozer from a construction site. There are numerous assignments of error which are relevant only upon the retrial of this case and with which the Court will deal seriatim in the footnotes; however, there are two significant assignments of error which warrant reversal and which are of general importance to the development of the criminal law of this State.

The first general question presented concerns the degree to which a witness’s prior out-of-court statement may be used as…