Opinion ID: 2319400
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Long's second trial

Text: The evidence for the prosecution at Long's second trial was concisely summarized by the trial judge, in her order denying Long's § 23-110 motion, as follows: Fourteen-year-old Ronald Williamson was killed after being shot five times in the body and head in an alleyway on 21st Street, NE, Washington, D.C., on March 19, 1996. According to the evidence presented by the government, Ronald Williamson and friends had threatened the Defendant at gun point, struck the Defendant on the head with the gun and stomped on the Defendant's Super Nintendo video system. Long v. United States, 910 A.2d 298, 301 (D.C. 2006). Approximately two weeks later, the Defendant and William Tilghman tracked Ronald Williamson to an alley to seek revenge. Id. According to the testimony of William Tilghman, the Defendant told Ronald Williamson to turn around because someone was coming through the cut. Id. Once Ronald Williamson turned, the Defendant directed Mr. Tilghman to shoot. Id. When Mr. Tilghman hesitated, the Defendant grabbed the gun from Mr. Tilghman and proceeded to fire off half a dozen shots at Ronald Williamson himself. Id. After running out of ammunition, the Defendant proceeded to hit Ronald Williamson on the head with the gun and then walked up the alley to get more bullets from a box hidden under a porch. Id. at 302. At this point, Ronald Williamson was lying on his stomach and struggling to crawl. Id. The Defendant returned to the alley after reloading his gun, stood over Ronald Williamson and shot him one more time. [5] Based on this evidence, and notwithstanding important admissions and contradictions by several of the prosecution witnesses, including Tilghman, see Long I, 910 A.2d at 310, Long was convicted of armed premeditated murder, conspiracy, and three related assault or weapons offenses. Id. at 301. On September 15, 1998, Long was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for armed first-degree murder and to shorter concurrent terms on the other charges. Long appealed from his convictions, but in Long I, this court rejected his various contentions on direct appeal. Id. at 301-06.
Under circumstances described in more detail below, Michael Plummer was not called as a witness at Long's second trial, in part because Baer took the position that Plummer, his potential star witness, had a Fifth Amendment privilege. At the first trial, however, Plummer, who was sixteen years old at the time of Williamson's murder, testified for the defense. Plummer and Tilghman were both incarcerated in the juvenile cell block of the District of Columbia Jail between January and July 1997. According to Plummer, Tilghman told him and other prisoners, on several occasions, that he had murdered Williamson (who, despite his youth, was known as Man-Man). Tilghman told Plummer that Man-Man had harassed Tilghman and pulled guns on him, that he (Tilghman) had grown tired of Man-Man, and that he had killed Man-Man. Tilghman also informed Plummer, according to the latter's account, that Tilghman planned to pin the murder on his codefendant, whom Tilghman called Meatball, so that he (Tilghman) could beat the case, or at least get shorter time. Subsequently, Plummer was transferred to the adult cell block, where he met Meatball, who turned out to be the defendant Colie L. Long. On cross-examination, the prosecutor posed questions suggesting that Plummer had filed a complaint alleging that other prisoners had sexually harassed him, that he (Plummer) had gone after Tilghman to keep other prisoners off of Plummer, that Plummer had stolen Tilghman's red and black Air Baker shoes, that Plummer was wearing the stolen shoes while testifying at Long's trial, and that Plummer had told Tilghman that Tilghman should be glad that Plummer did no more than take Tilghman's shoes because we were suppose[d] to kill Tilghman. Plummer emphatically answered all of these questions in the negative, denied that he had signed a harassment complaint ostensibly bearing his signature, and rejected the assumptions on which the prosecutor's questions were based. Tilghman was re-called by the prosecution on rebuttal. He testified that Plummer stole Tilghman's shoes, that Plummer admitted that he had done so, and that Plummer told him that he (Tilghman) should be glad that Plummer had only taken his shoes, because Plummer was supposed to have stabbed [Tilghman]. The government presented no evidence to support its apparent suggestion, implicit in the prosecutor's questions, that Plummer was afraid of sexual harassment by other prisoners. At the conclusion of the first trial, at which Plummer had testified, the jurors convicted Long only of CPWOL, but they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict as to the armed murder charge. The charge of conspiracy to commit murder was not before the jury in the first trial. At the second trial, at which Plummer did not testify, Long was convicted of conspiracy and of armed first-degree murder and related offenses.