It’s not often that I praise the Twin Cities’ mainstream media. Especially the two dailies, whom I would not trust to cover Republican electoral campaigns fairly and honestly (as institutions, not necessarily in terms of each and every reporter) if offered them a billion dollars.
But when they’re right – when they actual do the gumshoe reporting on issues that their institutional biases allow them to be fair and honest about – sometimes they truly do God’s work.
As in the Koua Fong Lee case, as recapped by columnist Ruben Rosario (via Bob Johnson’s ADemocracy).
Rosario:
Justice prevails, no thanks to ineffective defense counsel and obstinate county prosecutors.
A defense attorney’s mission is to advocate as best he or she can for the client. A prosecutor’s ultimate mission is to seek justice. Both failed miserably in this sad case.
Lee was the driver of a Toyota involved in a horrendous crash in the summer of 2006, in Saint Paul. I remember driving by the crash scene, on Snelling at I94, as I ran errands that evening; it was one of the worst accident scenes I’ve ever seen.
In hindsight, the first big mistake was to prosecute this case as a felony…there was no evidence at all that this man, returning from church services with his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old daughter, intended to crash at high speed into another vehicle. He was not drunk or high or text-messaging or dozing off or otherwise distracted.
Yet, for argument’s sake, even if we grant that he wrongly stepped on the accelerator pedal instead of the brake, it is still not a felony. No matter. He was charged with multiple counts of criminal vehicular homicide, gross negligence. He was prosecuted and convicted as a criminal and sentenced to an eight-year state prison term.
The problem, as Rosario – recapping a story that was covered in Pulitzer-worthy depth (and by that I mean Pulitzers as they once were, rather than as they are today) by PiPress reporter Jackie Gurnon – was the lawyers; Lee’s “defense” attorney…:
That conviction was secured in no small part with the head-scratching support of a defense lawyer who contradicted his client’s testimony that he stepped and kept his foot on the brake right through the fatal impact.
In fact, this lawyer embraced a key prosecution witness’s gas-pedal theory during closing arguments and never aggressively pursued alternative theories that may have supported what his client was saying about what happened. Who needs prosecutors with a lawyer like that?
…and, most chillingly, the Ramsey County Attorney’s office; even as reports of unintended uncontrollable accellerations in Toyotas multiplied:
…Gaertner and her office not only opposed a new trial, but also brought in “experts” who pooh-poohed new findings that seemed quite obvious. One of the most glaring prosecutorial missteps in all of this was pushing the theory that Lee did not step on the brake because there was a lack of long skid marks at the accident scene.
Of course, the new evidence underlined that Lee’s car had anti-lock brakes, which don’t leave skid marks when applied.
That’s something that should have easily been checked, regardless of the subsequent Toyota recall. But neither the defense nor the prosecution bothered to check this most momentous fact during the trial.
Read the whole thing – and no, I haven’t excerpted anywhere near the whole fascinating story.
It’s good to know there are still reporters that can still do some good in this world.
It’s chilling to realize that Susan Gaertner – the Ramco attorney – has higher political aspirations.
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