THE JUDGE & THE CONVICT'S WOMAN
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Yan's wife Lu did testify. However, Trammell denied Reynold's
request to cross-examine her regarding evidence that she and Yan may have
tried to get money from Jin's family and from the investigating officers.
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The verdict required the judge to sentence both
Jin and Chu to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
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After both sides rested their cases, the judge gave the jury the usual
instructions to be applied in deliberating on the evidence. The defense
specifically asked Trammell to instruct the jury that if it finds that the
evidence doesn't support the offenses with which the defendants are charged,
it has the option of finding a defendant guilty of a lesser included offense.
Trammell refused to give that instruction. That forced the jury either to find
Jin and Chu guilty of kidnapping for extortion or to find them innocent. It
wasn't given the option of finding them guilty of simple kidnapping which
carries a far lighter sentence.
Some hours into deliberation, the foreman buzzed the bailiff and
complained to the judge that one of the jurors was refusing to deliberate.
The judge called a few of the jurors individually into his chambers and
interviewed them. The dissenting juror against whom the foreman had made
the complaint responded with a complaint of his own about the misconduct of
the other jurors. Without looking into those complaints, the judge dismissed
him and swore in one of the jurors who had been following the trial and
deliberations as an alternate. In a trial of any length, one or more alternates
are selected to sit with the dozen impaneled jurors so they can step in in case
one or more of the impaneled jurors are unable to complete deliberations.
A short time after the dissenting juror was dismissed, the jury came
back with its verdicts: Jin was guilty of all counts and Chu guilty of
kidnapping for extortion and residential robbery and innocent of assault with
a semi-automatic weapon. The dismissed juror, Reynolds believes, was likely
a lone holdout whose continued presence would have given his client a hung
jury.
Under California Penal Code section 208 simple kidnapping normally
carries a three, five or eight-year sentence. However, section 209 imposes a
mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole where a
kidnapping is for extortion and the victim is found to have suffered bodily
injury. In this case, the jury found that Jin and Chu had kidnapped the Yans
for the purpose of extorting a promise to drop criminal charges and that Yan's
head injury constituted "great bodily injury". Under California law the
verdict required the judge to sentence both Jin and Chu to spend the rest of
their lives in prison.
Normally a judge pronounces sentence within hours, days or, at most,
a few weeks of a verdict. In this case, however, what followed the July 9,
1996 verdict was a series of unusual events. The judge was merely putting
into play his schemes to delay sentencing, believes Enid Ballantyne. His
motivation? To prolong his grip over Jin's fate so as to continue his sway
over Lo.
Regardless of Trammell's precise intentions, a series of unusual
conferences followed the verdict. Judges scrupulously avoid conferring with
either side on a case in the absence of the other side. Such one-sided ex
parte communications are regarded as inherently suspicious and creating
an impression of impropriety. On August 28, 1996, Trammell had an ex parte
conference in his chambers with deputy DA Morrison. Two days later, he
held separate ex parte meetings with both Jin and his attorney Reynolds and
Chu and her attorney Ballantyne. Trammell then ordered the records of all
three meetings to be sealed and kept confidential.
Ming Ching Jin was smooth, charming and liked by many in Southern
California's Chinese immigrant community. As he awaited sentencing, the
judge was presented dozens of letters attesting to Jin's warmth, generosity
and charity, including two from this Rowland Hills barbershop.
He then held a hearing on September 13, 1996 in which he openly
discussed his reservations about the life sentence that the verdict required
him to hand down to Yu Ching Chu.
"The prosecutor, defense lawyer, judge, and investigating officer are
all saying that somehow we have reached a bad result in the end, a bad
potential result," Trammell said in open court. There was no disagreement
with this observation. During the trial Deputy DA Larry Morrison had
portrayed Jin as a cunning hardened criminal, but he was uncomfortable with
a mandatory life sentence for Chu whom he saw merely as a junior
accomplice. The only way to avoid dooming Chu to a life sentence was for
Trammell to find grounds for declaring a mistrial, after which he could order
a new trial.
During the trial, Trammell declared, he had seen some things that
made him question whether Chu and Jin had not suffered from "ineffective
assistance of counsel"--a clear slap at both Enid Ballantyne and Montie
Reynolds. For that reason, the judge went on, he intended to appoint on
behalf of each defendant a so-called second counsel to investigate ineffective
assistance of counsel as a possible basis for a new trial motion. Appointment
of second counsel wouldn't delay sentencing or the hearing of new trial
motions, Trammell assured the defendants.
The Judge began asking around for a Chinese-speaking female
attorney to appoint on Chu's behalf. Someone suggested a criminal defense
lawyer named Karen Gee, a 37-year-old partner at Bensinger, Grayson &
Ritt, a small Pasadena firm specializing in sexual harassment cases. Gee had
gotten a BA from Yale and her JD in 1986 from top-ranked Boalt Hall. She
had spent eight years getting trial experience in the public defender's office
before joining Bensinger Grayson two years ago. A few months later she
became a partner.
Trammell phoned Gee and asked her to come to his courtroom to
discuss the assignment. Gee was reluctant to assume the second counsel seat.
Aside from the fact that such assignments entail the unpleasantness of
second-guessing another attorney's work, the state sets fees at $75 an hour, a
far cry from Gee's usual $245.
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