Opinion ID: 340682
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Kidnap Testimony

Text: 44 Another prosecution witness was Mr. Hoover, the Columbus resident kidnapped by Kaiser and Fortune. Hoover testified of admissions relevant to the murder charge made by Kaiser during the trip to Texas following the kidnapping. In answer to preliminary questions regarding how he had come into contact with appellant, Hoover disclosed the kidnapping and some of the surrounding circumstances. Appellant complains that Hoover's testimony about the fact and circumstances of the kidnapping constituted evidence of other crimes serving only to impugn Kaiser's character. 12 45 Appellant cannot and does not complain that Hoover's recollections of Kaiser's statement that he had killed three men and was on the run from the FBI were not properly admitted. Some predicate testimony of Hoover's association with Kaiser was necessary to establish that the witness had actually been in a position to be addressed by Kaiser and to enable the jury to make any intelligent judgment regarding Hoover's story. That predicate necessarily included at least the bare fact of the kidnapping. Cf. United States v. Bloom, 538 F.2d 704 (5th Cir. 1976). 46 Admitting evidence of other crimes for any reason, however, is proper only if genuine need for that evidence, in light of the contested issues and other evidence available to the prosecution, outweighs the danger that the jury will be inclined to convict because the other crimes show a defendant to be a bad person. See United States v. Miller, 500 F.2d 751 (5th Cir. 1974), reversed on other grounds, 425 U.S. 435, 96 S.Ct. 1619, 48 L.Ed.2d 71 (1976); United States v. Goodwin, 492 F.2d 1141 (5th Cir. 1974). While we insist on careful application of that balance because of the inevitably great danger for prejudice, we cannot find fault with admitting the fact of the kidnapping here. That fact was the bare minimum necessary to establish Hoover's opportunity to hear Kaiser's admissions, which were themselves important, relevant evidence. No alternative setting for Hoover's testimony existed. 47 The court did permit Hoover to go into greater detail regarding the circumstances of the kidnapping than was necessary to make his testimony to Kaiser's admissions comprehensible to the jury. Nonetheless we are unable to find any harm flowing from the improper failure to limit the predicate testimony more narrowly. The details of the kidnapping reflected no greater force or depravity than would ordinarily be comprehended by the mere fact of kidnapping. Given the highly incriminating nature of the admissions themselves and the abundance of evidence implicating Kaiser in the murder, we can find no possible prejudice from the failure to exclude those details.