Defense Asks Jury to Consider ‘Killing Fields’

Jurors in the Asian Boyz murder trial must now wrestle with the question of whether four young men deserve to die for a 1995 killing spree, or whether those who lived through the bloody Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as children have suffered enough.

“This boy deserves a break in the horrible life that he’s had. And that break is to let him live,” defense attorney Jack Stone said, wrapping up three days of defense closing arguments.

After six months of trial, the “killing fields” defense will finally be tested when the jurors begin deliberations Monday.

Defendants Roatha Buth and Sothi Menh lived under the four-year Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the 1970s, where a quarter of the nation’s population is said to have died by execution, from disease or starvation.

A third Cambodian defendant, Bunthoeun Roeung, grew up “in refugee camps or on the run” from the regime, according to his lawyers.

Attempting to save their clients’ lives, defense lawyers called on family members to tell of their experiences in Cambodia. Buth’s attorneys had him examined by a psychologist and psychiatrist, both of whom determined he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome from his early years in Cambodia, where two of his brothers died of starvation or disease.

“Since his premature birth there has been a specter of death that has cast a shadow over the life of Roatha Buth,” defense attorney Robert Schwartz told the jury. “Mr. Buth suffered some terrible hardships as a young boy in Cambodia, and as a result, Mr. Buth became emotionally wounded.”

Buth’s lawyers pointed to the testimony of a psychologist who said that his life in Cambodia, compounded by his arrival in racially divided Van Nuys, his failure in school and the death of his brother impaired his capacity to understand the implications of his actions.

Prosecutors countered that many who lived through the same horrors have chosen to live crime-free lives. They pointed to the testimony of Dr. William Sack, the defense psychiatrist who has interviewed dozens of Khmer Rouge survivors over 15 years and acknowledged he has found very few instances of gang violence.

“Whatever Mr. Buth went through in Cambodia, he found himself at a crossroads,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Hoon Chun said. “He could have chosen to go to work every day, or he could have chosen to get involved in gangs and shoot and kill people. What choice did he make?”

In their arguments to the jury Tuesday and Wednesday, Chun and Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird pointed to the dozens of people assaulted by the gang, 10 of whom were shot fatally, some execution-style. They urged the jury to keep in mind the “real victims.”

Laurie Levenson, associate dean of law at Loyola University, said it is common for defense lawyers to dredge up their clients’ shattered lives in trials on punishment because often it is the only defense available.

“For those jurors that are looking for some redeeming quality in this person’s life, this is something for them to hang their hat on,” she said. “When [the defense] is not successful is when [jurors] feel it’s made up to play on their sympathies.”

The primary defense put forth for Son Than Bui, who is Vietnamese, is that his role in the killings was not as triggerman, but as “aider and abetter.” Defense lawyer Daniel Nardoni called a deputy sheriff to testify to his client’s good behavior for the three years he’s been in custody, and the defendant’s relatives to talk about his good grades in school and the effect his execution would have on them.

The lawyers made impassioned pleas to the jury that their clients are not the “worst of the worst” who deserve the death penalty, that they are not evil or soulless.

“I want you to see him as a human being, not as a criminal, not as an animal,” defense lawyer Donald Calabria said of his client, Menh. He implored them to extend him mercy, “a gesture of high humanity.”

Last month, seven Asian Boyz gang members were convicted for their roles in six murders and 10 attempted murders over a one-year period, but jurors failed to reach a verdict on one shooting. The jury found special circumstances making Roeung, Menh, Buth and Bui eligible for the death penalty, which led to a second trial on the issue of punishment.

During the penalty trial, prosecutors Baird and Chun told the jury about more crimes, including three other killings for which the defendants are alleged to be responsible. One of them was the brutal home-invasion slaying of a man while his wife and children slept.

The gang is also suspected of having the father of the state’s key witness--a gang member who turned state’s evidence--killed at his San Jose doorstep during the trial. No charges have been filed in the case and the slaying has been kept from the jury.

One of the gang members who was not eligible for the death penalty, Ky Tony Ngo, was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in two shootings, one of which left a man dead.

Ngo, 23, was sentenced to 32 years to life, plus six consecutive life terms, by Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp. Because the jury found the crimes to be gang-related, Ngo will not be eligible for parole for 112 years.

Last month, David Evangalista, 24 and a former college honor student, was sentenced to 45 years to life and six consecutive life terms for one murder and six attempted murders. He will not be eligible for parole for 125 years.

Kimorn Nuth, a gang member who was not eligible for the death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time of the slayings, faces life without the possibility of parole.

The Asian Boyz gang is made up of Cambodian, Vietnamese and Filipino members whose families immigrated to the United States in the 1970s.