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''Huddleston v. United States'', 485 U.S. 681 (1988),〔(), Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681 (1988).〕 was a case in which the United States Supreme Court removed a procedural obstacle to admitting evidence of a witness's motive, plan, or knowledge that had been imposed by some courts of appeals after reading Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The court reaffirmed that there are adequate other mechanisms present in the Rules to ensure that overly prejudicial evidence does not reach the jury. ==Facts== Huddleston was being tried for selling stolen goods and possessing stolen goods, related to two portions of a shipment of Memorex videocassettes that had been stolen from the Overnight Express yard in South Holland, Illinois. Huddleston later sold the missing videocassettes to the owner of Magic Rent-to-Own in Ypsilanti, Michigan. At the trial, he did not dispute that the cassettes had been stolen. He contested a crucial element of the charged crimes — whether he knew that the cassettes had been stolen. To prove this element, the government sought to introduce two pieces of "similar acts" evidence that was relevant to Huddleston's knowledge that the videocassettes were stolen. First, the government called Paul Toney, a record store owner, to testify that Huddleston had offered to sell him some 12" black-and-white television sets for $28 each. Toney testified that Huddleston told him he could obtain several thousand of these televisions. Toney eventually accompanied Huddleston to the Magic Rent-to-Own store on two occasions, and bought a total of 38 televisions. Second, the government called Robert Nelson, an undercover FBI agent posing as an appliance dealer, to testify that Huddleston had offered to sell him a large quantity of Amana appliances. Nelson agreed to pay $8,000 for the appliances. At the time appointed to make the delivery, Nelson arrested Huddleston, and found that he had brought part of a shipment of appliances that had been stolen. Huddleston testified at the trial that he had obtained the videocassettes legitimately. The prosecution explained in closing arguments that Huddleston was being tried only for the videocassettes, and that the evidence about the televisions and the appliances was intended to help the jury determine whether Huddleston knew that the videotapes had been stolen. The jury convicted Huddleston on the possession charge but not on the sale charge. Huddleston appealed his conviction to the Sixth Circuit. That court initially reversed the conviction because the government had not proven by clear and convincing evidence that Huddleston had known that either the televisions or the appliances had been stolen, and thus that those incidents were not admissible against Huddleston in his trial on the videocassette charges. After the Sixth Circuit decided in a different case that courts should prove similar acts evidence by a preponderance of the evidence, it upheld Huddleston's conviction because it concluded that the evidence regarding the televisions had been proven by a preponderance of the evidence. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to decide whether courts should decide if similar acts evidence has been proven before allowing juries to factor it into their decisions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Huddleston v. United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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