U.S. v. Howard

In prosecution of charge of soliciting third-party to murder defendant's ex-girlfriend, Dist. Ct. did not err in admitting uncharged bad acts, including: (1) orders of protection that ex-girlfriend had placed against defendant; (2) hiring another individual to throw caustic liquid in ex-girlfriend's face; (3) monitoring ex-girlfriend and recording her telephone calls; (4) hiring another individual to shoot girlfriend; (5) supplying crack to third-party to entice him to shoot ex-girlfriend; and (6) recruiting another individual to retrieve gun used in attempted shooting of ex-girlfriend. Said evidence was admissible to establish defendant's intent and motive to kill ex-girlfriend and was sufficiently close in time and was similar in nature to justify its admission. Fact that said evidence left jury with impression that defendant wanted to kill ex-girlfriend and had generated plan to kill her merely arose from jury's permissible uses of said evidence and did not constitute improper propensity evidence.