Jim P and his wife, Lisa P, both Taiwanese subjects, started out their life in modest circumstances. Jim was a businessman and an engineer and Lisa a helper, wife and mother to two young boys. Jim and Lisa were hard workers. They set up a small manufacturing business in their garage. The business grew and eventually their business became the manufacture of small electronic items and eventually that business became the largest small electronics firm in the world.
Things were good for them until Jim visited a resort in Mainland China named TsingTao, a resort on the Yellow Sea (also famous for a beer produced by the same name) for a business meeting. There, he met a much younger, beautiful, tall and elegant young lady named Jennifer Lee, who hailed from the Manchuria area, and guess what? Yes, a relationship developed and from that relationship, somehow, Jennifer became pregnant. Jennifer did not want to abort, and China had a strict policy regarding pregnancies, particularly out-of-wedlock. So, Jim arranged to have Jennifer move to Orange County, where she was to live in a townhouse in the El Toro area, and where she gave birth to a boy who was named Kevin. Everything was fine, except Jim and his wife Lisa and the boys also had a very nice house in Mission Viejo, a community very close to the area Jennifer and Kevin Lee lived in, an adjoining city close to Jim and Lisa’s house.
When Kevin was about 5 months old, someone knocked on Jennifer’s door and whoever that person was struggled with Jennifer, slashing her several times, causing her to bleed to death from knife wounds, but not before the alleged assailant bit Jennifer on the arm, causing a piece of Jennifer’s skin to reveal teeth marks. Kevin, the 5 month old, fared no better, ending up suffocated to death, purportedly by a pillow.
The penalty for a double murder is death, or life without parole, if one or both of the murders is of the 1st degree.
Jim had earlier booked a flight from Taiwan to Japan and then to Los Angeles and arrived several hours after landing to the El Toro townhouse, where he discovered the bodies of the two victims, and after a period of time, contacted the police, causing the beginning of the investigation of a “who done it” police inquiry. The date was August 1993.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department was in charge of the investigation. The investigators did not have a murder weapon, nor any other evidence, such as fingerprints or other physical evidence, except the saliva from the bite mark on Jennifer’s arm, which revealed a DNA hit. They suspected Lisa as the perpetrator, but she was back in Taiwan, and there was no extradition treaty between Taiwan and the US, so she was secure, until law enforcement convinced Jim to persuade Lisa to come back to the States, so they could get a blood sample and make a comparison. At the time, DNA had not been accepted by any case in California as scientifically sound, and the scientists were not all in agreement as to DNA accuracy. Regardless, there was a match between Lisa’s DNA and the DNA recovered from the bite mark. So the Sheriffs convinced Jim to bring Lisa to the Sheriff’s station where the interrogation began.
Over several hours, the investigators tried to get Lisa to confess; they threatened her with a death penalty, threatened to arrest her boys, played “good cop-bad cop,” and basically just did everything one could think of to get an admission, ignoring her constant repeated requests for a lawyer All to no avail, as no incriminating statements were made. So, in their frustration, they persuaded Jim to talk to her, and they would record the conversation, which he agreed to do, and did. Lots of talk, all denials, until, finally, Jim demanded to know why Lisa bit Jennifer, and Lisa said “because she attacked me,” but at no time did she admit to the knife slashing or the smothering of the 5 month old baby. With that, the investigators arrested Lisa for the murders
Lisa needed a lawyer and Jim’s representative here in the States searched for one, and, after inquiry with several civil lawyers for a recommendation, they chose me. To my memory this was sometime in 1993 or 1994
It’s nice to have the funds to do what is necessary for a complete defense investigation, together with experts, a slew of attorneys, investigators and experts, as well as jury consultants and the whole ball of wax, which lawyers won’t always get unless it is the Public Defender with a budget.
Lisa was not able to communicate in English, so I would need an associate to communicate with my client. The first one I hired allowed his wife to talk to Lisa and gave her some bad advice, so I got rid of him and then heard of a lady named Anna Ho. Ho was just great. Anna ended up as a Federal immigration judge later. After trying to learn about DNA, I knew I was out of my league, but I had to attack the DNA as a scientific proof. Today it is accepted and is based on statistics such as there is one trillion chances the DNA belongs to the accused, compared to where it as found.
So the first thing in a felony charge is the preliminary hearing ,which I have explained in earlier blogs. There was going to be two things to raise at the preliminary hearing, one challenging the admissibility of the DNA and the second the statement given to Jim P and recorded as a violation of the 4th Amendment, based on the fact Jim was, in effect, a government agent, and Lisa had demanded on several occasions an attorney, and she had made it clear that she did not want to talk without an attorney present, plus she had stated several times she did not want to talk to the investigators, a violation of the 5th Amendment, the right to remain silent.
I was fortunate I had hired Lynn Patterson earlier as one of the attorneys in my firm. I had advertised for an associate and Lynn had responded. She did not have a wealth of experience in criminal law, but in the interview, I learned her undergraduate degree was in astroscience from Smith College. Not that I knew a lot about Smith, but that was where my wife had wanted to attend, but her parents would not let her go out of California, so my dear wife went to Stanford instead. I knew Smith was rated right up there with the seven sisters: Vassar, Wellesley, etc., so I figured I had a smart one there, and Lynn could learn criminal law as we go I made a good choice, and we are still in contact after all these years
The preliminary hearing was before judge Art Kohle. I am going to explain the unique relationship between the Bench and Bar in further blogs, but just let me say the relationship was good between the judges, the prosecutors and the “good old boy” defense attorneys. On the surface, it probably didn’t look kosher, but it was. Judge Art was a former deputy DA and a golf partner with the head DA Investigator and me, but that relationship would have nothing to do with the independence of the judges and prosecutors. Well, Art had no knowledge of DNA, or the science around it, so it took him about 6 weeks to review the briefs, read the written material regarding the science, and after that was done, he ruled against me, and admitted the DNA. He also denied my motion to suppress Lisa’s statement with a comment on how closely he had reviewed the statement to the wife, and thus Lisa was held for trial based on the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing
Next, the trial…
Marshall
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