Chinatown Verdict--2nd-Degree Murder

In a major defeat for the prosecution, a Superior Court jury Monday ended the yearlong Chinatown trials by sparing the life of the alleged mastermind of a violent 1984 robbery that caused the deaths of a Los Angeles police officer and two holdup men.

Prosecutors had sought first-degree murder convictions that could have sent Hau Cheong (Peter) Chan to San Quentin’s death chamber.

Instead, after deliberating off and on for nearly a month, the jury found Chan, 32, guilty of second-degree murder in the Dec. 19, 1984, death of Officer Duane Johnson during a wild shoot-out inside the tiny Jin Hing jewelry shop.

Chan’s defense lawyer, Leslie Abramson, was jubilant. “I’m in seventh heaven,” she told reporters. Just before the verdict, she said Chan told her,’ “All I want is justice’ and justice is done.”

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence Longo, called the verdict “a terrible miscarriage of justice. I think he got away with murder.”

Chan was tried on eight felony counts. In addition to second-degree murder for Johnson’s death, he was convicted of four other charges: attempted murder counts involving Johnson’s partner, Officer Archie Nagao, and Robert Lee, son of the jewelry store owner; assault with a deadly weapon on Nagao, and first-degree robbery. The lesser charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years to life.

Johnson’s widow, Kathleen, left the courtroom shortly after the verdict was announced. She later declined comment. Nagao, who had hurried from the courtroom last week when Chan’s accomplice, Sang Nam Chinh, 22, was given life in prison without parole rather than the death penalty, did not attend Monday’s proceedings.

The jury, which began deliberations March 14, acquitted Chan of a second attempted murder charge involving Nagao and of the murders of two accomplices, Robert Woo, 26, and John Cheong, 33.

Of the five would-be robbers, two, Woo and Cheong, died at the scene. Chan and Chinh, who was wounded during the gunfight inside the store, were brought to trial and the fifth suspect, Thong Huynh, was acquitted of harboring Chinh after the robbery and later testified for the prosecution about how the crime allegedly was planned.

Monday’s verdict apparently hinged on the importance of Chan’s role in the abortive robbery and shoot-out.

Prosecutors asserted that Chan was the mastermind behind the botched robbery of the jewelry store on a narrow Chinatown alley known as Bamboo Lane, but jurors said they never believed that he was the leader.

Four jurors who agreed to talk to reporters said they believed Chan’s role was that of a getaway car driver who cased the robbery scene in the days before the heist. The masterminds were the men who died inside the shop, the jurors said.

The prosecution relied on testimony from Robert Lee and his father, Leon Lee, the owner of the jewelry store, and from customers who were held at gunpoint to prove that Chan was inside the store and described the holdup and shoot-out.

But the jurors said there were too many conflicts in testimony for them to feel certain that Chan ever went into the store.

“There was no evidence to prove he was inside the store,” said juror Debra Ford of Inglewood.

Under California law, a suspect can be found guilty of crimes that actually were committed by others as long as a jury determines that the person willingly carried out his own role in the illegal activity.

Ford and others said they found the instructions they were to follow in reaching a verdict very specific but sometimes difficult to understand.

All four jurors said they had no choice but to find Chan guilty of second-degree murder rather than first-degree murder based on the instructions from Superior Court Judge Jean Matusinka.

Prosecutor Longo blamed the instructions for forcing the jury to return the second-degree conviction. “I was afraid that would happen,” he said. “I think the instructions given by the court were erroneous.”

Matusinka treated the jurors to refreshments in her chambers after the verdict to thank them for their work during the year on the case. Jury selection began in February, 1987. Jurors started deliberating Chan’s guilt March 14. He is scheduled for sentencing May 27.

During nearly seven months of testimony, witnesses told how armed men entered the Jin Hing on a rainy Wednesday afternoon just before Christmas in 1984.

While the store owners and customers were held at gunpoint, the robbers began filling plastic bags with jewelry.

A silent alarm secretly set off by shop owner Leon Lee summoned Johnson and Nagao on foot patrol from a police substation only half a block away. The two officers, their holstered guns covered by yellow rain slickers, were admitted to the store by one of the well-dressed robbers who fooled the officers into thinking he was an employee.

After a cursory look around the store, the officers appeared about to leave when Cheong drew his gun and shots rang out. Prosecutor Longo argued that it was bullets from guns fired by Chinh that killed Johnson and wounded Nagao.