Opinion ID: 2314684
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Greene

Text: None of the appellants took the stand. Greene called Grinnage's aunt, Rosetta Ross, as a defense witness. Ross testified that she and her daughter, Rositta, attended a 1978 Christmas party at the office of Dr. William Dixon, and that Mary Bedney was at the party. Rosetta Ross stated that she had heard Bedney say to Rositta, Let's not argue about this; your family get $3000 together and I will free him. [15] The prosecutor attempted to impeach Rosetta Ross with a certified copy of a robbery conviction of Rosetta Ross. Greene's counsel intervened, advising the court that Rosetta's daughter, Rositta, had been convicted of robbery but that he had no information showing that Rosetta, the mother, had a conviction. The prosecutor replied that he had a good faith basis for asking the question; he possessed a certified copy of a conviction in the witness' name. The court allowed him to ask, [Are you] the same Rosetta Ross who was convicted of robbery? The witness answered, No. My daughter, not me. Greene also called Edward O'Connor, Jr., a former Metropolitan Police officer, who testified that he had investigated the shooting of Fulton's wife, Mattie Brown, in May 1978. When O'Connor arrived on the scene, he found Brown dead, and her brother and her sixteen-year-old son, Marvin Young, in the room with the body. The brother told O'Connor that John Fulton had shot Brown. The son was distraught and, at one point, picked up a gun from the dining room table, waved it threateningly, and walked toward the doorway. O'Connor took the gun away from the boy. John Fulton later was arrested for his wife's murder. [16] Finally, Greene called Detective Dwight Veasey, who testified that he had prepared in the normal course of duty a police report (PD-123) which had recorded certain relevant information called into the station. The report revealed that at 4:05 A.M. on June 28, 1978, Officer Steven Smith had stopped William Duncan, who lived in the apartment building across the street from Fulton's, in the vicinity of the murder. Duncan was black, eighteen years old, 5'7 to 5'8 tall, and wearing a red short-sleeved shirt with white stripes and blue cut-off shorts. [17]