United States v. Jeff Edward Fortenberry, Jr.

860 F.2d 628, 1988 U.S. App. LEXIS 16004, 1988 WL 118695
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedNovember 10, 1988
Docket87-4844
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 860 F.2d 628 (United States v. Jeff Edward Fortenberry, Jr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Jeff Edward Fortenberry, Jr., 860 F.2d 628, 1988 U.S. App. LEXIS 16004, 1988 WL 118695 (5th Cir. 1988).

Opinion

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

This case asks whether the trial court erred in admitting evidence of extrinsic offenses when the prosecution did not establish that the defendant committed those offenses. Jeff Edward Fortenberry was convicted of conspiracy to commit arson and possession of an unregistered firearm; allegedly he had placed a small explosive device on a car belonging to his ex-wife’s father. The car suffered negligible damage, and no one was endangered by the act. The jury also convicted Fortenberry for an unrelated instance of transporting a handgun on a commercial airline. The jury heard extensive testimony concerning attacks against Fortenberry’s ex-wife, her attorney, her father, and the Chancery Court Judge who awarded custody of the Forten-berry children to his ex-wife. These acts caused damage to property and danger to safety far in excess of that resulting from the charged offenses. The government did not charge Fortenberry with committing them, nor did it prove that he committed them, but the evidence clearly was intended to imply that Fortenberry must have committed these acts. We conclude that the extrinsic evidence created undue prejudice that substantially outweighed its probative value.

I.

This case grows out of Fortenberry’s divorce in 1980 and the acrimonious custody battle that ensued. Initially Fortenberry received custody of his two sons. His ex-wife, Gloria Hudgins Fortenberry, later obtained legal custody of the children. She took physical custody of the boys in February 1985. She was awarded $13,575.61 in legal fees and back child support. To make those payments, Fortenberry’s salary was garnished at a rate of $750 a month, $350 for child support, $400 for legal fees. Judge Paul Alexander of the Chancery Court of Hinds County, Mississippi granted Gloria Fortenberry both custody and the payments. Gary Thrash, an attorney in Jackson, Mississippi, represented Gloria Fortenberry throughout these proceedings.

Fortenberry had moved to Dallas, Texas after his divorce, where he worked for Delta Airlines. He was allowed to travel on Delta without paying. Hence, he often visited his children in Mississippi. He testified that he travelled to Mississippi every weekend beginning in February 1985.

A series of unusual incidents began several months after the children returned to Fortenberry’s ex-wife. On November 1, 1985, a crossbow arrow broke through a window in Gary Thrash’s house, landing a few feet from Thrash and his two-year old son. Another arrow was found in a window frame. Sometime in March 1986, For-tenberry’s ex-brother-in-law found crossbow arrows embedded in the home of Fred Hudgins, Fortenberry’s ex-father-in-law. Hudgins had provided his daughter with financial and emotional support during the divorce proceedings. On April 1, 1986, a small pipebomb exploded at Hudgey’s Restaurant, which Fred Hudgins owned.

In the early morning hours of Sunday, April 20, 1986, the incident underlying this prosecution occurred. A small explosive device damaged Fred Hudgins’s automobile. The car was unoccupied and parked in the driveway of his home. The next morning Hudgins noticed some debris in the driveway and thought someone had tried to siphon gasoline from his car. He drove the car to church and to his restaurant. Later that day, he called the police. The first police report listed the crime as “malicious mischief”. A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) agent testified at trial that, “The car was not rendered inoperable or heavily damaged at all, or damaged sufficiently at all”. He said that a small piece of plastic, perhaps a *631 “mud or debris flap”, had broken from the wheel well of the car. The explosive device was similar to the one exploded at Hud-gey’s Restaurant.

On July 4, 1986, another restaurant owned by Fred Hudgins was damaged by fire. The arson unit of the Jackson Fire Department determined that a device similar to that used on Hudgins’s car and other restaurant had started the fire. Hudgins’s restaurants had been in Chapter 11 the month before the fire. As a result of the fire, he received $32,000 from his insurance company. At the end of that same weekend, Gary Thrash, Gloria For-tenberry’s attorney, returned home to discover that about 20 rounds of .22 caliber ammunition had been fired into his house.

On October 16, 1986, two crossbow arrows were found in Gloria Hudgins Forten-berry’s home. On October 18, fire caused over $20,000 damage to Gary Thrash’s home and destroyed two automobiles. No one was home when the fire occurred. The police found that the fire had been started by an incendiary device similar to those used on Hudgins’s car and restaurants.

The Jackson Fire Department Arson Unit issued a warrant for Fortenberry’s arrest. On October 23, 1986, BATF agents questioned Fortenberry at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport as he was about to board a plane for Jackson, Mississippi. Fortenberry agreed to turn himself in to Jackson officials the following day. When he arrived at the airport in Jackson he was arrested. A routine inventory of his suitcase revealed that it had contained a revolver when it was carried in the luggage compartment of the plane. He contended that he became flustered when questioned at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and forgot to leave the gun in his car, as he usually did.

A search of Fortenberry’s apartment in Dallas discovered a notebook in which For-tenberry had said he felt he was at “war” with the people responsible for taking his sons. This passage was dated May 3, 1985. 1 The search also discovered papers on which Fortenberry had written the addresses and license plate numbers of Thrash, his ex-wife’s attorney, and Alexander, the Chancery Court judge.

Fortenberry was charged with two counts arising from the vandalism of Fred Hudgins’s car on April 20, 1986, conspiracy to commit arson and possession of an unregistered firearm. The firearm was the explosive device placed on Hudgins’s car. He was also charged with violating airport safety statutes by carrying a handgun in his suitcase on October 23, 1986 without notifying the airline. 2 None of the other incidents were included in the indictment.

At trial, Donna Haymon, a Mississippi resident who dated Fortenberry in the spring and early summer of 1986, testified that Fortenberry admitted to placing a “firecracker” in Fred Hudgins’s car. She testified that he had shown her a crossbow and that he boasted of often carrying guns onto airplanes. The government also introduced the documents found in Fortenber-ry’s apartment. In addition, it argued that Fortenberry had attended a mercenary camp in March 1986. Much of the government’s case, however, consisted of testimony and exhibits describing the crossbow *632 attacks on the houses of Gary Thrash, Fred Hudgins, and Gloria Hudgins Fortenberry, the arson at Fred Hudgins’s restaurants and Gary Thrash’s home, and the .22 caliber bullets found in Thrash’s home. The government did not prove that Fortenberry committed these extrinsic offenses. It argued that these attacks against people, linked only by their opposition to Forten-berry, singled out Fortenberry as the perpetrator. Fortenberry objected to this evidence. After a brief hearing, the trial judge admitted it.

Fortenberry was convicted on all three counts.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
860 F.2d 628, 1988 U.S. App. LEXIS 16004, 1988 WL 118695, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-jeff-edward-fortenberry-jr-ca5-1988.