Former college football star Bobby Hoppe will not be retried in a 31-year-old slaying because there is no new evidence in the case, a prosecutor said today. ``We have gone to great extremes to try to find new proof in this case ... There is no new proof. There is nothing different than what we had initially,'' said District Attorney General Gary Gerbitz. Hoppe, 53, went on trial last month for the July 20, 1957, shotgun death of moonshine runner Don Hudson, but a mistrial was declared when the jury deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal. The state contended that Hoppe, then a 22-year-old college student, killed Hudson because Hudson, 24, had beaten Joan Hoppe Voiles, Hudson's ex-girlfriend and Hoppe's sister. Hoppe claimed self-defense, testifying that he fired a shotgun at Hudson only after the bootlegger drove up beside his car on a dark street and pointed a pistol at him. The prosecutor said the state was handicapped because it could try Hoppe only for first-degree murder, since the statute of limitations for lesser degrees of homicide has expired. ``If this case would have gone to the jury under a first-degree, second-degree, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter option, the outcome may very well have been different in June,'' he said. Nevertheless, Gerbitz said, the state was pleased that it had finally answered the question of who had killed Hudson. ``For 31 years, the Hudson family lived with the fact that they didn't know who killed their son and their brother,'' he said. ``They know now who killed him. And even though his admission is one of self-defense, it was an admission.'' At the time of the slaying, Hoppe was preparing for his senior year at Auburn, where he was a halfback on the football team. That fall, the Tigers went 10-0 and won their only national championship. Although Hoppe was questioned about the slaying in 1957, no charges were filed until March 2, 1988, when he was indicted after a 14-month investigation that began when Hudson's mother, Georgia Hudson, asked police to reopen the case.
