BRITTANY GREGORY - 16 yo (2004) - Brick NJ

Saying Jack Fuller had received effective legal representation
throughout his murder case, a judge in Ocean County refused today to grant a new trial for the killer of a 16-year-old honor student five years ago.
Superior Court Judge James Den Uyl issued his ruling after a lengthy
delay in the emotional hearing during which Fuller, who admitted four
years ago to killing Brittney Gregory of Brick Township, refused to
appear in the Toms River courtroom.
Fuller, a Howell man who admitted killing Brick teenager Brittney Gregory, at his sentencing in Ocean County Court in 2006.
Wearing white T-shirts with Gregory's photograph
emblazoned across the front, nearly two dozen of her friends and
relatives packed the small courtroom in a show of support for the
straight-A student whose body was found in a shallow grave in Lakewood
two weeks after she went missing.
Some of Gregory's supporters mumbled "coward" and "sissy," when
Fuller's attorney, Eric Foley, said his client would not be coming into
the courtroom.
Foley did not offer a reason for Fuller's absence. After the
hearing, Sam Marzarella, a supervising assistant Ocean County
prosecutor, said he suspected it was an attempt by Fuller to manipulate
the court system.
"It's consistent with what he's been doing throughout -- adjourning these things," Marzarella said.
But Gregory's mother, Debra Gregory, said she believed Fuller did not have the courage to face the dead girl's family.
"He's a coward," she said. "He started this, now he should come out and finish this. He can't come out and face my family."
After the hearing, Gregory said she was elated with the judge's decision.
"I'm ecstatic. He's not going anywhere," she said.
Through Foley, Fuller asked Den Uyl to allow him to withdraw his
request for a new trial but give him the option to refile it later. In
a letter to the judge, Fuller said he wanted more time to get his
medical records to try and bolster his claim his previous attorney
should have pursued a diminished capacity defense.
Marzarella objected, saying Fuller is "basically trying to whipsaw
us." He said there have been nine adjournments of the request since
Fuller filed the motion in November 2007.
"Somewhere down the line he's going to be arguing his claims haven't
been exhausted" if the judge allowed him to withdraw it and refile
later, Marzarella said.
Den Uyl would not allow Fuller to withdraw the petition because, he
said, Fuller had ''ample opportunity to ... develop the claims
asserted."
Foley argued that Fuller's previous attorney, John Goins, made
several errors that forced Fuller into accepting a plea deal not of his
own volition. He said Goins should have pursued a diminished capacity
defense because Fuller was strung out on drugs when he killed Gregory.
Fuller told a psychiatrist he used 15 bags of heroin and a gram of cocaine each day in the weeks leading up to Gregory's death.
But the judge said a defendant cannot use that defense -- like an
intoxication defense -- to argue the killing would not have occurred if
he was sober.
Fuller killed Gregory on July 11, 2004, after she accepted a ride
from him. Her family reported her missing two days later and police
charged Fuller with the murder on July 18, 2004, more than a week
before her body was found. Searchers found her unclothed remains on
July 27, 2004.
On Oct. 18, 2005, Fuller pleaded guilty to one count of murder.
Fuller, an acquaintance of Gregory's father, said he punched Brittney
in the head after she yelled and screamed at him not to smoke cocaine
in front of her while she was in his car. He said he continued to smoke
crack and didn't tend to her even after she went unconscious.
Authorities don't know why she was in his car, but surmise she may have
sought a ride to her boyfriend's house in Brick.
Gregory's mother rushed out of the courtroom when Den Uyl, reading
from the transcript of Fuller's account of the killing, described how
Fuller heard Brittney making gurgling noises after he punched her.