Luong v. State (Ex parte State)
Decision Date | 14 March 2014 |
Docket Number | 1121097. |
Citation | 199 So.3d 139 |
Parties | Ex parte State of Alabama. (In re Lam LUONG v. STATE of Alabama). |
Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Luther Strange, atty. gen., and James R. Houts, asst. atty. gen., for John C. Neiman, Jr., deputy atty. gen., petitioner.
Anna Arceneaux and Cassandra Stubbs, ACLU Capital Punishment Project, Durham, North Carolina; and Glenn L. Davidson of Collins, Davidson LLC, Mobile, for respondent.
, Justice.
In February 2008, a Mobile County grand jury charged Lam Luong with five counts of capital murder in connection with the deaths of his four children. The murders were made capital because: (1) two or more persons were killed “by one act or pursuant to one scheme or course of conduct,” see § 13A–5–40(a)(10), Ala.Code
1975; and (2) each child was less than 14 years of age when he or she was murdered, see § 13A–5–40(a)(15), Ala.Code 1975. Following a jury trial, Luong was convicted of five counts of capital murder. The trial court sentenced Luong to death for each of the five capital-murder convictions. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Luong's convictions and death sentences, holding that the trial court erred by refusing to move the trial from Mobile County because, it reasoned, the pretrial publicity was presumptively prejudicial and by refusing to conduct individual questioning of the potential jurors regarding their exposure to that publicity. The Court of Criminal Appeals also held that the trial court erred in denying defense counsel funds to travel to Vietnam to investigate mitigation evidence and in admitting into evidence during the sentencing hearing a videotape simulation using sandbags approximately the weight of each child illustrating the length of time it took for each child to fall from the bridge to the water.1
Luong v. State, 199 So.3d 98 (Ala.Crim.App.2013). This Court granted the State's petition to review the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals. We reverse and remand.
In its sentencing order, the trial court presented the following facts surrounding the offenses:
due to drowning. The cause of death for Hanna was drowning.
“....
First, the State contends that the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals that “Luong's case represents one of those rare instances where prejudice must be presumed,” 199 So.3d at 122
, conflicts with Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 130 S.Ct. 2896, 177 L.Ed.2d 619 (2010), and Ex parte Fowler, 574 So.2d 745 (Ala.1990). The State maintains that the holdings of the Court of Criminal Appeals that the evidence indicated presumed prejudice against Luong and that his case should have been transferred to another venue ignores two important principles: the principle that criminal trials should be held in the communities where the crimes occurred and the principle that the law vests the trial court with discretion in determining how to ensure the impartiality of a jury....
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