Judge Keeps Ng Torture-Killing Trial in O.C.

An Orange County Superior Court judge refused to transfer the torture-killing trial of Charles Chitat Ng back to Northern California on Friday after learning that bankrupt Orange County’s concerns about financing the massive trial will be resolved by a plan for the state to pay all costs up front.

Deputy County Counsel Tom Agin confirmed that after two weeks of negotiations, Orange County, state and Calaveras County officials have agreed on a plan to prevent a worsening of Orange County’s cash-flow headaches.

The proposal specifies that the state will fully cover all trial-related expenses, from guarding Ng to paying the travel expenses of witnesses to hiring additional staff. The county will not be required to incur any out-of-pocket expenses under the proposal.

“Under the circumstances this is the best we are able to do,” said Gaddi H. Vasquez, chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Even so, he said, an Orange County courtroom will be tied up for an estimated two to four years by the Ng trial. “My preference would have been that this matter would be handled in another jurisdiction,” he said, “But that is a decision the court must make and is not within the purview of the Board of Supervisors.”

Ng, 33, is accused of mutilating and killing 12 people on a remote ranch in 1984 and 1985. One victim was Robin Scott Stapley, a 25-year-old Orange County resident. Ng, who faces the death penalty, has pleaded not guilty. A second suspect was arrested but committed suicide several days later.

Ng’s case was transferred out of rural Calaveras County in Northern California to Orange County by the Judicial Council of California after Ng’s lawyers complained that they could not find an impartial jury in that rural area where so many of the murder victims had lived.

Without the special agreement, Orange County would be required to pick up the future tab for the trial--which has already cost $4.1 million and threatens to cost millions more--and then wait for state reimbursement. But Orange County’s bankruptcy, declared Dec. 6, threw a wrench in the process. “We could not write a check because we are bankrupt,” Agin said.

The plan, which will go to the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for approval, proposes placing $400,000 in state money in a trust fund within the county auditor-controller’s office, to be drawn upon to pay “reasonable and necessary” trial expenses as they arise. Subsequent cash infusions will keep the fund replenished.

The money will flow from the state to Calaveras County, where the Ng case originated, to Orange County, Agin said. Under state law, Calaveras County retains ultimate financial responsibility for the trial, and Orange County is expected to provide Calaveras County with expense records.

Although the Ng trial no longer poses a financial hardship to Orange County, Carl Holmes, the county’s chief deputy public defender, said Friday that the public defender’s office still believes the Ng case should be tried in Northern California because that is where the crimes were committed and all but one of the victims lived. Holmes said his office would immediately ask the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana to overturn Friday’s ruling by Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald.

Holmes also acknowledged that a Northern California jury probably would be more sympathetic to a murder defendant than a jury in Orange County, which has an exceptionally conservative reputation.

Fitzgerald ruled on the change of venue request the day after Orange County Superior Court Presiding Judge James L. Smith issued a stay in the case, to consider allegations by the public defender that Fitzgerald is biased against Ng and should be disqualified.

Holmes cited Fitzgerald’s upcoming retirement and the judge’s public statement that he personally desires to try the Ng case.

“Judges are typically prudent and cautious because they face reelection,” Holmes said. “This judge does not face reelection.”

Fitzgerald’s ruling also could be overturned if the defense’s motion to disqualify him is granted, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Fitzgerald has denied that his statements prove bias. The motion to disqualify him is expected to be heard by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge next week.

The Orange County public defender’s efforts to kick the Ng case back north will continue to be opposed by the state attorney general, said Matt Ross, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

“We are clearly opposed to having it moved again,” Ross said.

Ross noted that although Ng was arrested in Canada in 1985, he was not extradited until 1991 and his trial has yet to begin.