JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Death row inmate Thong Le wants the Mississippi Supreme Court to order prosecutors to turn over information about a witness they proposed to call during Le’s sentencing hearing after his conviction for killing three people.
Le was convicted in 2002 in Jackson County for the killings and received three death sentences.
Le contends his counsel had planned to call witnesses at the hearing to offer positive testimony on his character. Prosecutors had said they would counter with a witness who would testify Le was a drug dealer.
Le argues his lawyer abandoned the character witnesses, leaving him no counter to a prosecution witness who never testified.
A state judge earlier denied Le’s motion. The Supreme Court has asked prosecutors to file a response to the motion.
“Mr. Le is not asking for a new trial at this point; he is merely seeking to be allowed to go on the often-cited ‘fishing expedition’ — except this time, in an overstocked pond containing the very fish which would have been served to him on a silver platter prior to trial,” Le’s current attorney, Scott Johnson, wrote in the motion to the high court.
Johnson, with the state Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, said Le’s trial attorney had intended to call Le’s mother and others during the sentencing phase to testify about his character. Their testimony was to be offered to persuade the jury that Le’s participation in the murders wasn’t consistent with “the remainder of his life story and life activities warranted a sentence of life without parole rather than death.”
Johnson said prosecutors announced on the trial’s second day that they had a witness, identified in court documents as Bob Cunningham, who would testify Le was a drug dealer and that he sold guns to Le.
Court records show the trial judge refused to allow the testimony during the trial’s guilt/innocence portion. The judge allowed prosecutors to file a proffer, or a roadmap of evidence, to which the witness would testify.
Johnson said Le’s defense team was caught by surprise.
“Le’s counsel … believed that he could not put on his intended mitigating evidence in favor of Mr. Le at sentencing because — if the court ultimately allowed Cunningham to testify — trial counsel had nothing with which to impeach Mr. Cunningham’s credibility,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that while some information about Cunningham was available, including an extensive criminal history, Le wants access to more including investigation reports from law enforcement agencies.
A Jackson County judge in September denied Le access to such records and he appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Le, now 31, was convicted for the murders of Minh Hieu Thi Huynh, 46, and her daughters, Thuy Hang Huynh Nguyen, 15, and Thanh Truc Nuynh Nguyen, 11.
He claimed he participated in the robbery of the family but not the killings.
Prosecutors said Le went to the family’s house in St. Martin on Nov. 1, 2001, to rob them of $1,300. The daughters, home alone, refused to give Le and co-defendant Ngan Tran the money. Le and Tran tied up, beat and strangled the girls, and attacked the mother when she came home later even after she gave them money.
Le did not testify at his trial. Court records show jurors heard a taped confession made to police.
Tran committed suicide in April 2002 while being held at the Jackson County Jail.
