United States v. Hills
United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces
75 M.J. 350 (2016)
- Written by Salina Kennedy, JD
Facts
Sergeant Kendall Hills (defendant) was charged with committing several sexual offenses against Specialist PV. At Hills’s trial by court-martial, the prosecution moved, pursuant to Military Rule of Evidence (MRE) 413, to admit all of Hills’s charged conduct in the case as evidence of Hills’s propensity to commit the offenses of which he was charged. Hills had entered not-guilty pleas to the charges to be used as propensity evidence. The military judge granted the prosecution’s motion and instructed the members of the panel that: (1) they were required to consider evidence of each offense separately, allowing each offense to stand on its own; (2) the prosecution was required to prove each element of each offense beyond a reasonable doubt; (3) proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to one offense could not be used to infer guilt as to a separate offense. However, the military judge also instructed the members that, if they determined by a preponderance of the evidence that Hills had committed one of the charged offenses, they were permitted to use the finding as evidence of Hills’s propensity to commit sexual assault. Hills was convicted of abusive sexual conduct. The Army Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, and Hills appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Ryan, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 814,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,300 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.