United States v. Woody

250 F. App'x 867
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedOctober 12, 2007
Docket06-2100, 06-2104
StatusUnpublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 250 F. App'x 867 (United States v. Woody) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth 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. Woody, 250 F. App'x 867 (10th Cir. 2007).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

PER CURIAM.

In these consolidated appeals, Defendants-Appellants Henry Peter Woody, Jr., and Larry Woody (collectively “Defendants,” individually “Henry” and “Larry”) appeal from their convictions for second-degree murder in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1111(a), § 1153(a) and § 2. On October 21, 2005, following a four-day jury trial, Defendants, who are brothers, were found guilty in connection with the stabbing death of Kenneth Tutt on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Shipróck, New Mexico. The district court sentenced Henry to 262 months imprisonment and 5 years supervised release and Larry to 235 months imprisonment and 5 years supervised release.

Defendants challenge their convictions on four grounds: (1) Larry argues there was insufficient evidence adduced at trial to support his conviction; (2) both Henry and Larry argue evidence was admitted at trial in violation of Fed.R.Evid. 401 and 403; (3) Larry challenges several of the prosecutor’s remarks made during closing arguments; and (4) Henry argues the district court erroneously imposed a special condition on his supervised release without giving prior notice pursuant to Fed. R.Crim.P. 32(h). Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a), we reverse both convictions — Larry’s due to insufficient evidence and Henry’s due to the erroneous admission of evidence substantially prejudicial to his defense.

I. Background

In the early morning hours of April 26, 2004, Kenneth Tutt’s body was discovered under a tree behind the City Market in Shiprock, New Mexico. The area in which Tutt’s body was discovered is known to be frequented by transients. It was later determined that the cause of Tutt’s death was a stab wound to the left side of his neck.

*869 On February 25, 2005, a federal grand jury returned a second superseding indictment charging Defendants with the second-degree murder of Tutt. After the district court denied the government’s motion to sever, trial commenced on October 17, 2005, and ended on October 20, 2005. The jury returned guilty verdicts against Defendants the following day. In sentencing Defendants, the district court imposed, without notice, a condition of supervised release that both Defendants submit to suspicionless searches of their property and persons whenever requested by law enforcement.

Because we must review the record for sufficiency of the evidence in Larry’s appeal and for the admission of unfairly prejudicial evidence in Henry’s appeal, we recount in some detail the pertinent portions of the trial testimony. Prosecution witness, Officer Brenda Harrison with the Navajo Nation Department of Law Enforcement, was the first officer to arrive on scene after Tutt’s body was discovered on April 26. She observed a pair of broken sunglasses and a baseball cap near the body. She also observed blood splatters on the tree branches near Tutt’s head. She and another officer did not locate any other evidence in the area surrounding the crime scene. Harrison also testified she was familiar with Defendants prior to Tutt’s death and both of them usually carried backpacks. At some point during the investigation of the crime scene, the authorities received information from Nelvis Dawes, a man who resided between 100 and 200 yards from where Tutt’s body was found, that led them to focus their attention on Defendants. The information gleaned from Dawes also led police to the property of Barbara Litson for the purpose of searching a shack occupied by Paul Hayes, Jr. At around 11:00 a.m., the authorities received permission from Litson to search the shack, and, based on something they found during the search, the shack was secured until a search warrant could be obtained.

George Joe, the individual who called law enforcement to report the discovery of Tutt’s body, testified next. He explained a friend had informed him there was a body behind the City Market. Joe also testified that he had known Defendants for three or four years and had seen them in the vicinity of the City Market in the early afternoon on April 25. He described how Larry typically wore blue jeans, tennis shoes, sunglasses that fold over the eyes, and a cap. Henry typically wore square sunglasses, a light blue jacket, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. Later, during cross-examination, Joe confirmed Henry was wearing a light blue windbreaker on April 25, the day before the body was discovered.

Phillip Joe, the second law enforcement officer to arrive on scene after Tutt’s body was discovered, testified to observing broken wrap-around style sunglasses near the victim and described the general area around the body as “somewhat trashy.” (R. Vol. IX at 59.) He explained the Hayes shack was located right next to the street and was “pretty simply put together with numerous rough material, lumber, bark wood, plywood, and the front of the shed was or the entrance was unsecured.” (Id. at 67.) Hayes was not in the shack at the time of the search. Next, Officer Joe detailed how he searched the shack and discovered what appeared to be a bloody steak knife within a cupboard. On redirect examination, Officer Joe testified that, at the time of the search, he also noticed a portion of a blue jacket with reflective tape on it stuck behind a mattress. Later in the trial, Officer Joe claimed a jacket seized from Henry following his arrest was similar to the blue jacket he had seen in the shack on April 26.

*870 Shirley Hayes, Paul Hayes’s aunt, who also lives on the property with Litson, testified as follows: Hayes was indeed living in the shack on April 25; Defendants were staying at the shack on the afternoon of April 25; and food from a birthday party was sent out to them at around 4:00 p.m. She opined that Henry always wore a light or dark blue windbreaker, Larry always wore a blue and white jacket, and both of them always carried backpacks.

Litson was called next and testified that when she returned home from Las Vegas, Nevada, on the evening of April 25, nobody was at the shack. She confirmed, however, that sometime before 10:00 a.m. on the morning of April 26 she saw Defendants walking near the shack and both were holding bags.

Dawes was next. He said Defendants had been in the Shiprock area in the month and a half preceding Tutt’s death. He observed the following on the evening of April 25:

And I seen a bunch of people walking as a group, and there was this one individual that they were kicking, and he kept falling down. He would get up, and they would kick him again. And then the taller one would eventually help him up, and it seems like he was getting his hits in at the same time, too. And he would get up again, and he would kick him down again. And finally, they just kept on doing that, and they just kept on walking.

(R. Vol.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United States v. Smith
135 F.4th 905 (Tenth Circuit, 2025)
United States v. Bullcoming
22 F.4th 883 (Tenth Circuit, 2022)
State of Iowa v. Derris L. Swift
Supreme Court of Iowa, 2021
United States v. Oldman
979 F.3d 1234 (Tenth Circuit, 2020)
United States v. Hernandez
711 F.3d 1194 (Tenth Circuit, 2013)
United States v. Embry
452 F. App'x 826 (Tenth Circuit, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
250 F. App'x 867, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-woody-ca10-2007.