USA - Alabama. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial for Derek Horton

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial for Derek Horton, 24, White, because the prosecution had improperly attempted "to buttress its weak case" against Horton for the murder of a woman in a burglarized mobile home by presenting evidence of his past drug use and of an investigation against him for domestic violence. The court said this evidence of bad character was "superfluous to the State's case" and "served no purpose other than to paint Horton as a drug-using, drug-dealing criminal who had a propensity to commit violent crimes against women." The court found the use of this evidence especially prejudicial because the state had "produced no witnesses or direct evidence placing Horton at the victim's mobile home at the time of the crime" and his fingerprints were not found on any of the murder weapon or any of the items taken from the mobile home or strewn about the highway in the vicinity of the location in which the victim's stolen car had been abandoned. See also August 31, 2012).