Interview: Chinese-American experts express concerns over conviction of former policeman

Three Chinese-American legal experts have expressed serious concerns over the recent conviction of a Chinese-American policeman for accidently shooting dead a black man in New York that has sparked strong protests in the Chinese-American community.

In separate interviews with Xinhua, Attorney David Qinghua Cao in Houston, Attorney Hugh H. Mo in New York and Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Lieutenant Yin Leung all raised objections to the Feb. 11 conviction of Police Officer Peter Liang.

At the trial held in the Kings County Supreme Court in Brooklyn, 10 out of 12 members of the jury voted for the conviction of Liang. The 28-year-old officer with the New York Police Department (NYPD) was found guilty for fatally shooting unarmed Akai Gurley while patrolling with his partner on the darkened eighth floor of the Pink Houses in the borough of Brooklyn.

One bullet was shot out of Liang's service gun, ricocheted on a wall and killed Gurley.

Liang, working for the NYPD for only 18 months, was convicted of second-degree manslaughter, becoming the first policeman from the NYPD to be convicted of homicide for shooting a civilian since 2005.

In response to the conviction, a huge demonstration crowd of approximately 10,000 people protested around Los Angeles City Hall on Saturday against the conviction of Liang, amid rallies by tens of thousands of people in more than 30 U.S. cities.

In his interview with Xinhua, Attorney David Qinghua Cao saw the verdict as "very disturbing," saying that "the evidence was mishandled, resulting in the jury's misled and, accordingly, unjustified verdict."

"For example, as juror Carlton Screen told the media, only 10 of all 12 jurors voted for conviction, and it was only after every juror tested the trigger of officer Liang's service pistol that they unanimously agreed that Liang was guilty as charged, because they felt the trigger was too hard to pull," Cao said, "In other words, Officer Liang must have voluntarily and consciously fired the gun."

The attorney also questioned the conditions the jurors faced, which were different from what Liang had encountered.

"How can jurors, with different individual constitutions and most having no experience with firearms, determine in a safe courtroom whether the trigger was too hard to pull for a robust young officer, who must have fired hundreds, if not thousands, of rounds through that gun during his training, on a highly stressful situation like that dark stairwell in a high-crime area?" he said, "That was doing officer Liang injustice."

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Lieutenant Yin Leung has been working for the LAPD for nearly 30 years. He has been a detective for four years in charge of the division dealing with cases in which police officers mistakenly shot innocent people.

"Liang did not commit murder according to the prosecutor," Leung told Xinhua, "Murder is of a very high level with planning, motives and all those things. And the prosecutor just said he committed manslaughter, which is of a very low level and is very easy to approve. The fact is somebody was killed and in his hand," the officer said.

He noted that it would be better to find a lawyer to speak for Liang.

"Now it depends on how the officer testify for himself. He need to know how to articulate... If that were LAPD, we would not allow an officer to sit there to testify. We had a lawyer to defend him, because it's better for a lawyer to speak for him," Leung said.

Based on his experience over the past three decades, Leung said that the NYPD's training of new staff should also be blamed.

"Another problem is the training from NYPD -- never put two new persons in the job in dead location. That's totally wrong and silly. LAPD would never do it. Our training is very different and is all constructional," he said.

"I looked into the whole case. Liang's partner is a new guy, and he is new, with no experience. So I can say that is a negligent supervision," Leung added.

Attorney Hugh H. Mo, deputy police commissioner of New York and assistant district attorney in Manhattan, believed that the guilty conviction of Liang has been affected by the current political climate.

"I think Peter Liang's case was examined in a wrong time and a wrong place. Within the last year and half, or two years, there has been a number of police shootings of innocent black men. That's certainly brought the issue of police accountability. As we all know, the cases of (Eric) Garner and (Michael) Brown have galvanized the African-American community as well as the white community. Many African Americans feel that the police must be held accountable," he said.

As for future court trials, Attorney Cao held that the best way to help Liang is to find the best legal professionals for him and raise funds to pay the charge.

"Peter Liang needs the best lawyers for the appeal of the case, and will also need the best trial lawyers and expert witnesses if he gets another trial," Cao said. Endi