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Hudson v. State9/20/1999
Appellant Tommie Gene Hudson was convicted of the 1995 murder of David Sims and the aggravated assault of Hudson's fiancee, Tejuana Whitehead. Ms. Whitehead testified that, in the early months of 1995, while she was engaged to marry appellant, she and the victim had had a sexual affair. On the day of the shootings, she had been in the room she used as a bedroom with the victim, who had found the gun she kept hidden under her bed. She took the gun from him and put it in a desk drawer. During this time, appellant called on a cellular phone to tell her he was on his way to her apartment. Ms. Whitehead had the victim hide in her closet and let appellant into the apartment. When appellant asked the whereabouts of the gun and Ms. Whitehead could not find it in the desk drawer, she left the dwelling to get her purse from her car, hoping that appellant would follow her outside. Instead, appellant remained inside and she heard a shot. She re-entered the apartment and saw the two men struggling. She saw appellant leave the house with his shirt bloodied. He took the engagement ring off her finger and hit her and shot her when she grabbed him. She admitted at trial that she had not told police previously about the gun in the desk drawer or having seen the two men struggling. The medical examiner who performed an autopsy on the victim testified that he died from three gunshot wounds, and that the gun had been pressed against the victim's flesh when he was shot in the head below the left ear and in the neck and chest. A gunshot residue expert testified that hand wipings of the victim eliminated the possibility that the victim had discharged a firearm.
Appellant testified that he heard a noise from the back of the apartment after Ms. Whitehead had left. When he investigated the noise, a man armed with a gun attacked him. The two men struggled and the gun went off, fatally wounding the victim. Appellant then left the bedroom, got the engagement ring from Ms. Whitehead, and hit her with his hand holding the gun, causing the gun to discharge and a bullet to strike her.
1. The evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find appellant guilty of murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).
2. Appellant contends the trial court erred when it admitted evidence of appellant's 1994 guilty plea conviction for aggravated assault as a "similar transaction." At trial, a certified copy of the 1994 aggravated assault indictment and appellant's entry of a guilty plea thereto was entered into evidence. Neither the victim of the earlier aggravated assault nor any witnesses thereto testified, but two law enforcement officers involved in the investigation of the earlier incident testified that .25 caliber bullet shells were recovered from the scene of the aggravated assault and, as a result of their investigation, appellant was charged with aggravated assault and pled guilty. Appellant contends the officers' testimony was inadmissible hearsay and that the admission of the certified copies was not sufficient evidence of the purported similarity of the prior incident.
Generally in a criminal trial, proof that the defendant committed a distinct, independent, and separate offense is highly and inherently prejudicial, irrelevant and inadmissible, even if it is a crime of the same sort for which the defendant is being tried, unless there is some logical connection between the independent act and the crime for which the defendant is being tried, from which it can be said that proof of one tends to establish the other. Stephens v. S
Page 1 2 3 Georgia DUI Attorneys
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