State of West Virginia v. Bryan Maggard

The majority’s startlingly terse opinion, which reverses the petitioner’s conviction following a two-day jury trial, smacks of the worst kind of result-oriented jurisprudence. On the basis of cursory and incomplete legal analysis, the majority deprives the victim in this case of the justice which she deserves and suggests to similarly situated victims that review of the proceedings in their cases are not worthy of this Court’s thorough and fully developed analysis. Specifically, the majority incorrectly concludes that there was an erroneous admission of evidence prohibited by West Virginia…