Opinion ID: 2319400
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plummer's testimony at Long's first trial

Text: 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.