Defendant in Reopened 2014 Murder Case Receives New Counsel

By D.C. Witness Staff - July 21, 2021
Court | Daily Stories | Homicides | Shooting | Suspects | Victims |

A DC Superior Court judge appointed a public defender to represent a murder defendant whose case was reopened in 2020.

Gregory Green is charged with first-degree murder while armed in the death of Derrick Williams who, according to court documents, was robbed and shot in front of his Southeast, DC, home on March 29, 2014.

Green was first charged with murder in April 2014. His first trial ended with a hung jury. The second time around, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder while armed and armed robbery. He was sentenced to 35 years for murder and seven-and-a-half years for robbery. But in 2020, his convictions were overturned and he was granted a new trial.

Public defender Joseph Wong is now representing Green. 

During a July 20 ascertainment of counsel hearing, Judge Milton Lee pointed out how, at one point, Green expressed the intention to assert an ineffective assistance of counsel claim against his previous attorneys from the Public Defender Service (PDS). But Green said he is no longer pursuing that claim.

Green is scheduled to return to court on Sept. 21. 

According to court documents, Green claimed that the court should not have denied his motion to suppress evidence that police obtained from his cell phone.

In an opinion, Associate Judge Stephen H. Glickman wrote, “Mr. Green argues that this evidence was the fruit of an illegal search and seizure arising from the presence of law enforcement agents in his home without a search warrant or other legal justification. Because we agree that the trial court should have granted the motion to suppress the cell phone evidence, and because the erroneous admission of that evidence at Mr. Green’s trial was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, we reverse his convictions.”