Don't murder the three people who treated you like a son and grandson just because they tried to protect their real daughter and granddaughter from the rapist who molested her!

2014-M-271       State of Minnesota, Respondent, vs. Eddie Matthew Mosley, Appellant.

THE CRIME:  James and Clover Bolden lived with their daughter Delois Brown and her daughter W.H. in a Brooklyn Park home where they ran a daycare center.  W.H. was the half-sister of Mosley, and DeLois Brown treated Mosley as her son.  Mosley lived in St. Louis, but he frequently travelled to Minnesota and stayed with Delois Brown.  That changed in the winter of 2011-2012.

In November 2011, W.H. reported to police that her daughter had been sexually molested by Mosley.

On April 3, 2012, a criminal complaint charging Mosley with first-degree criminal sexual conduct was mailed to his residence in St. Louis.

 On April 5, 2012, W.H. received 25 phone calls and 13 text messages from Mosley in St. Louis in which he stated, among other things, that “30 years . . . that’s life,” “we family sis this not the way,” and asked W.H. to make the charges go away.

On April 8, 2012, Mosley paid a friend to drive hum to Minnesota.  They arrived in Brooklyn Park before dawn.  The friend saw Mosely  within a few blocks of the Brown home.

Later that morning, on April 9, 2012, the Boldens and Brown were found shot to death in Brown’s house. Following a police investigation, Mosley was indicted.  Mosley waived his right to a jury trial, and the district court held a bench trial.

Mosley was convicted of three counts of first-degree premeditated murder and sentenced to three consecutive terms of life imprisonment without possibility of release.

Appellant Eddie Matthew Mosley was indicted by a Hennepin County grand jury on three counts of first-degree premeditated murder, three counts of first-degree felony murder (burglary of an occupied dwelling), and three counts of first-degree felony murder (burglary while possessing a firearm), arising out of the shooting deaths of DeLois Brown, James Bolden, and Clover Bolden. 

Following a bench trial, Mosley was convicted of three counts of first-degree premeditated murder, and the district court imposed three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of release. 

In 2014, the Supreme Court rejected his direct appeal and affirmed his convictions and sentence.

THIS APPEAL:  In this first post-conviction appeal, Mosley is claiming he was entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered evidence in the form of affidavits signed by five alibi witnesses. He also claimed his trial counsel and appellate counsel provided ineffective assistance.  The post-conviction court denied his petition.

1.  The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting a witness’s in-court identification of appellant because the testimony did not violate appellant’s due process rights and was relevant and not unfairly prejudicial.

2.  The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding appellant’s proposed expert testimony on the problems with eyewitness identification because the proffered testimony would not be helpful to the trier of fact, and other safeguards were present to protect appellant against unreliable in-court identification testimony.  

3. Appellant’s claims of prosecutorial misconduct lack merit. 

Affirmed.

Dietzen (Gildea, Page, Anderson, Stras, Wright, and Lillehaug)

[MURDER]

A13-1494,