Case Study

Overview — Based on: Hudson v. State, 2011 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 63 (2011).

An Alabama trial court convicted Keokie Hudson of two counts of attempted murder and one count of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. The court originally sentenced Hudson, as a habitual felony offender, to concurrent sentences of life in prison for the attempted murder convictions as well as a term of 20 years for the vehicle shooting conviction. Unhappy with his criminal convictions, Hudson raised an appeal that, among other things, alleged that the trial court improperly admitted collateral criminal acts that he allegedly committed both before and after the events for which he stood convicted. The essence of the defendant’s legal theory was that the evidence of prior criminal activity created unfair prejudice to the merits of his case, and such evidence outweighed any probative value and, therefore, should have been excluded from his trial as legally irrelevant.

Hudson’s convictions were based on two separate criminal incidents that the evidence showed he committed. The first incident occurred on January 17, 2009, and formed the basis for the first attempted murder charge and a count of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. Hudson approached the vehicle occupied by a man named Miles and fired five shots into the car. No one in the vehicle was hit. The second incident, which was the basis for the second attempted-murder charge, occurred on June 28, 2009, at which time the victim, Miles, was attending an outdoor party when Hudson appeared and fired two shots at him, one of which hit Miles in the back, damaging his lungs and heart.

The prosecutor also presented evidence relating to three collateral activities that involved Hudson and the original victim, Miles, and some other individuals. The prosecutor gave advance notice to Hudson of the government’s intent to introduce prior bad acts during the prosecution’s case in chief. The court allowed the prosecutor to introduce evidence that in February 2008 Miles drove into an alley where the victim Miles was located. One of the other victims who was present that day testified that Hudson pulled a gun on some of them and pointed it into the vehicle in which they were sitting, in an attempt at robbery. Hudson fired a handgun, and the bullet went through the clothing of one of the victims. The second act attributed to Hudson occurred in November 2008, when Hudson showed up at a house where Miles was attending a party and fired two shots, one of which hit Miles in the ankle. The third criminal activity of a collateral nature that the court allowed the prosecutor to introduce involved a man named Bates who was sitting on his girlfriend’s front porch. Hudson drove past in a motor vehicle, firing four shots, one of which hit Bates in the leg.

Following a pretrial hearing, the judge allowed evidence of the first two collateral crimes to be admitted in court on the basis of Rule 404(b), because the first two events helped prove Hudson’s intent as well as his identity. The judge allowed evidence of the third shooting to be admitted on the basis that Hudson’s identity was still at issue because, in one of the prior shootings, Hudson had alleged that he was not present. The general rule dealing with the collateral and prior evidence of crime that a defendant has committed prevents the prosecutor from introducing evidence of the defendant’s bad activities for the purpose of showing the defendant’s bad character. Also, as a general rule, evidence of an accused defendant’s collateral and prior activities is not admissible if the only reason is to prove the defendant’s bad character and that he acted in conformity with such bad character in the case for which he is presently on trial.

In his argument at trial, Hudson contended that the collateral acts were not similar enough to the charged crimes; that is, that they lack a peculiarly distinctive modus operandi showing that the present crimes were the work of the same person, and should have been excluded from evidence.