Ex Parte Kenneth Eugene Billups. (in Re Kenneth Eugene Billups v. State of Alabama)

Summary

The court held that the trial court committed plain error by instructing the jury that it could consider evidence of Billups's involvement in the Avanti East killings for every listed noncharacter purpose under Rule 404(b), including purposes not at issue in the case. Because the instruction failed to restrict the jury to the specific purposes for which the State offered the evidence and seriously affected Billups's substantial rights, the court reversed and remanded for a new trial. Justice Smith, concurring specially, stated that the court's silence on the admissibility of the Avanti East evidence should not be understood as approving its admission and would have adopted the lower-court dissent's view that the evidence was inadmissible.