Jury Chosen for 2nd Lam Trial in Cooperman Death

A jury of six men and six women was chosen Thursday for the second trial of the 21-year-old Minh Van Lam, accused of murder in the death of Cal State Fullerton Prof. Edward Lee Cooperman.

Opening statements and the first prosecution witnesses are scheduled for Monday before Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard J. Beacom. Beacom was the judge at Lam’s first trial last month, which ended in a hung jury.

Lam, a Vietnamese student who had befriended Cooperman, has admitted he fatally shot the 48-year-old physics professor on Oct. 13, 1984, at his campus office but said it was an accident.

Jurors at the first trial voted 9 to 3 in favor of involuntary manslaughter.

The jurors voting “no” favored acquittal of all charges. Beacom eliminated first-degree murder as a possible verdict in the second trial because the first jury unanimously ruled it out. But Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James Enright, who is prosecuting the second trial, persuaded Beacom to let him seek a second-degree murder charge against Lam.

Friends of Cooperman believe he was a victim of a political assassination because of his scientific ties to communist-controlled Vietnam. Cooperman was head of a foundation providing scientific and humanitarian aid to Vietnam. He also favored normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam. Cooperman had told friends about death threats in recent months before he was shot.

But Enright and other law enforcement officials say there is no evidence to link Lam with a political assassination. Deputy Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen offered the jurors at the first trial no explanation why Lam would want to kill Cooperman. Enright so far has said he has no new evidence on motive.