Opinion ID: 1204328
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Investigation by Bergman and Ramirez

Text: In April of 1975, Bergman and William Lee persuaded the Examiner to pursue the Richard Lee story. Appellant Ramirez, a reporter for the Examiner, was assigned to work with Bergman in developing and investigating the story. Bergman's role was to cooperate with Ramirez in the investigation and to maintain contact with Porter. Ramirez's role was to investigate and write the articles. During the following year, Bergman and Ramirez interviewed between 35 and 40 people including attorneys, law enforcement officials, writers and experts on Asian youth and community issues, and friends and associates of Richard Lee. They also reviewed documents on Lee's background and the court files and police records in his and other cases. In the course of these efforts, the reporters uncovered several items which in their minds directly and indirectly corroborated Porter's allegations. The most significant of these involved perceived misconduct by respondents in the following circumstances. [16] 1. The reporters located a pretrial discovery order in the Lee case requiring the prosecution to furnish the defense with, inter alia, any and all statements, admissions and/or confessions of the accused and any and all statements of people who might be called as prosecution witnesses. They knew from conversations with Lee's trial attorney and from their reading of the trial transcript, that respondent Merle had not disclosed Porter's existence until the first day of trial. They also knew that the trial judge had denied a defense request for a continuance based on the disclosure of surprise witness Porter. Therefore, appellants perceived Merle's failure to disclose Porter's existence as an indication of misconduct, as corroborative of Porter's misconduct allegations, and as further support for their theory that Lee was denied a fair trial. [17] 2. The reporters learned that after trial and before sentencing, without notifying Lee's counsel, McCoy and Erdelatz brought Lee to the homicide bureau for questioning about another case. McCoy later informed the probation department that during this interrogation, Lee had confirmed that the evidence presented at his trial was correct. Lee, however, told Ramirez this was untrue. The reporters argued that the conduct of McCoy and Erdelatz in speaking to Lee before sentencing and without counsel was improper and that it was highly improbable that Lee had discussed his case. [18] 3. Porter steadfastly maintained he had been promised certain benefits for his trial testimony in the Lee case. [19] The reporters checked with attorneys and reviewed records which indicated to them that some type of arrangement had in fact been made between Porter and one or more of respondents in exchange for Porter's testimony. The removal of Porter's detainer by the parole board in late 1975 superficially corroborated Porter's claim that he benefited in exchange for his testimony. From the reporters' perspective, respondents acted improperly both by promising Porter benefits for his testimony and by not disclosing the arrangement to the defense. 4. The reporters also learned of formal and informal complaints against respondent Merle in other cases. Attorney Patrick Hallinan gave them a copy of his formal complaint against Merle to the State Bar. Hallinan maintained that Merle had improperly interrogated his client, Dean Tom, despite his knowledge that Tom was represented by counsel. Later, according to Hallinan's charges, Merle had lied in court about the matter. In addition, Paul Avery informed both reporters that Merle had suppressed exculpatory evidence involving Clifton Wong's confession that he committed the crime for which Merle was prosecuting Joe Fong. Similarly, Dennis Flanders, who worked at the Police Activities League and had testified against Joe Fong, informed Ramirez that he believed Fong had been framed and unfairly convicted. Ramirez also read a newspaper story which reported a case in which an attorney was cited for contempt of court for having told Merle, a witness in the case, to crawl down from the witness stand. 5. Porter told Bergman that during one of his meetings with Merle, he overheard Merle telephone a United States Army sergeant and suggest that an Asian man be dishonorably discharged in retaliation for failing to cooperate with Merle on a murder case. In the course of their investigation, Bergman and Ramirez obtained a copy of a letter from Merle to Major G.W. Sims memorializing their earlier telephone conversation concerning Johnson Lam, who was apparently under Sims's authority. In the letter, Merle stated that Lam, a victim of a severe beating by a Chinese youth gang, refused to testify and was extremely uncooperative, evasive and angry. Merle characterized Lam as having a negative attitude towards a serious problem in ... society as well as a problem of his own people.... The reporters argued that this letter was corroborative of Porter's version of Merle's telephone call. 6. Bergman and Ramirez also had access to a transcript of an interview between Attorney Sandra Terzian and May Tom as well as an affidavit by May Tom prepared by Attorney Roger Ruffin. Therefore, they were aware of Tom's sworn statement that she was unsure of her identification of Lee as Leong's killer and that her attempts to communicate this uncertainty to respondents had been met with anger and misrepresentations about the importance of her role in the case. [20] Ramirez interviewed May Tom four or five times and had several telephone conversations with her about her testimony in the Lee case. The reporters attempted to corroborate Porter's story through other channels as well. For example, Ramirez worked with several sheriff's deputies in an unsuccessful effort to locate jail records which might document the many meetings Porter alleged he had with respondents. The department's undersheriff informed Ramirez that record keeping was often intentionally incomplete due to security concerns. As a result, Ramirez did not consider his inability to locate any records on Porter's movement as undercutting Porter's claim that he had met with respondents numerous times. Bergman and Ramirez also made repeated but unsuccessful efforts to locate three persons  Porter's sister, his crime partner and girlfriend, and a missionary  to whom Porter said he had previously related his allegations about respondents. Apart from attempting to corroborate Porter's charges against respondents, the reporters gathered information regarding other aspects of the Lee case. For example, they spoke with Lee's attorney, Lee's friends and associates, and with alibi witnesses never called to testify by the defense. They interviewed Weyman Tso several times. Tso reiterated the gist of his sworn affidavit which William Lee had shown Bergman: Tso had witnessed the shooting of Leong and knew that Lee was not involved. Finally, the reporters contacted several people to gather background information on Chinese youth gangs and on the relationship between the Chinatown community and law enforcement. [21]