United States v. Mike Huang, John Chu, Paul Park, and Kwan Yue Cheoi

960 F.2d 1128, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 6639
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedApril 3, 1992
Docket1166-1169, Dockets 92-1035 through 92-1038
StatusPublished
Cited by67 cases

This text of 960 F.2d 1128 (United States v. Mike Huang, John Chu, Paul Park, and Kwan Yue Cheoi) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Mike Huang, John Chu, Paul Park, and Kwan Yue Cheoi, 960 F.2d 1128, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 6639 (2d Cir. 1992).

Opinion

KEARSE, Circuit Judge:

Defendants Mike Huang, John Chu, Paul Park, and Kwan Yue Cheoi appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, *1130 Robert P. Patterson, Jr., Judge, entered upon declaration of a mistrial, denying their motions to bar retrial and dismiss the indictment against them on the ground that a retrial would violate their rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution. The district court declared the mistrial upon the motions of Huang and Chu and over the objections of Park and Cheoi, on the ground that one of the translators at trial was not a properly certified interpreter under the federal Court Interpreters Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1827, 1828 (1988). On appeal, Park and Cheoi contend that there was no need for a mistrial and that, having objected to the mistrial, they may not be retried without violation of their rights to be free of double jeopardy. Huang and Chu contend that, notwithstanding their motions for mistrial, they should not be retried because the need for the mistrial was created by the court and the government. For the reasons below, we affirm the denial of the double jeopardy motions of Huang and Chu, and we reverse the denial of the motions of Park and Cheoi.

I. BACKGROUND

In October 1991, defendants were charged with, inter alia, conspiracy to kidnap one Chen Han Ying (“Chen”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(c) (1988); kidnap-ing Chen, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(1) and 2 (1988); and interstate travel in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1952 and 2 (1988). Trial commenced in January 1992; the presentation of evidence began on January 15. Chen was the government’s first witness.

On direct examination, Chen testified that on September 25, 1991, he had been forcibly abducted from his home in New Jersey and held for ransom by a group of armed men that included Huang, Chu, and Cheoi. Chen was taken to an apartment in New York City, where he was repeatedly beaten by several men, including Chu, Park, and Cheoi. Chen testified that he was also cut with a knife, burned with red-hot metal, and threatened with a snake. He eventually succumbed to defendants’ ransom demands and arranged for $12,000 to be paid. His captivity ended two days after his abduction, when law enforcement agents rescued him and arrested defendants.

On cross-examination, Chen was forcefully challenged by counsel for all four defendants, who attacked, inter alia, his identification of defendants and various details of his direct testimony. They sought to impeach him with statements he had made before a New York State grand jury and statements he had made in a pretrial identification hearing held in the present case.

In connection with the prosecution, each of the defendants had requested and received the services of an interpreter. Huang’s primary language was the Fu-Zhao dialect of Chinese; Chu and Park spoke Korean; and Cheoi’s primary language was the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. Chen testified in the Mandarin dialect of Chinese, and most of his testimony was translated at trial by Laura Ho, a per diem employee of the United States Attorney’s office who had been certified by the Southern District Court Interpreters Office as qualified to interpret court proceedings. On January 23, the government arranged for one Arthur Kwok to substitute occasionally for Ho. Kwok, who had been an interpreter in the New York State court system for some three years, had not been certified by the Court Interpreters Office as qualified to interpret in federal court. Kwok shared with Ho the translation duties during the latter part of the cross-examination of Chen, which ended on Friday afternoon, January 24.

At the start of proceedings on Monday, January 27, the trial court announced that it had received a call from the Court Interpreters Office, reporting that as to portions of Chen’s cross-examination, Kwok had been summarizing, rather than giving a verbatim translation. Huang and Chu promptly moved for a mistrial:

Mr. Weiss [Attorney for Chu]: Mr. Chu’s application is for a mistrial. I don’t know any way that we can restore his right to an accurate confrontation with the witness. If we put the witness back on the stand and try to confront *1131 him with what he testified to earlier he can always say it was the interpreter that was wrong. I think it’s tainted the proceeding.
The Court: Rest of you join in that?
Mr. Hom [Attorney for Huang]: I do.
Mr. Weiss: Judge, I just want to add to what my thinking is so the record is clear. Our strategy, to a great extent, relied on the witness’ prior statements to the grand jury in debriefing, ... and the witness claimed that’s not what he said. So now we have the jurors alerted that there are, in fact, problems with translators which further impairs his de-fense_

(Trial Transcript (“Tr.”) 719-21.) Park and Cheoi initially did not join the mistrial motion:

Mr. Campriello [Attorney for Cheoi]: Your Honor, Mr. Choi [sic] and I have elected to proceed and not to join in this motion. However, I don’t want there to be any indication to this jury that there’s any problem whatsoever with these interpreters for the reason Mr. Weiss just articulated. That’s the testimony, I have to live with it, the government has to live with it, the jury has to live with it.
Mr. Joy [Attorney for Park]: It is also Mr. Park’s wish to continue under the same conditions, that no mention be made to the jury as to what problems there are or aren’t in the translation.

(Tr. 721.) Upon learning that not only had the interpreter limited his translations of long answers to summaries, but that the interpreter was an employee not of the court but of the United States Attorney’s office, Cheoi’s attorney took the position that Cheoi was entitled to a mistrial on that dual basis; but he stated that his motion was a conditional one for a mistrial “with jeopardy attached. And if the court is not going to give me jeopardy, I don’t want the mistrial. But I think I’m entitled to a mistrial and a mistrial with jeopardy.” (Tr. 723.) Cheoi’s attorney explained his position as follows:

Mr. Campriello: _
.... We did not know, we had no reason to know, we had no reason to inquire, we had no reason to do anything. And then we find ourselves in this pickle, and I don’t think this trial can go better for my client the second time around because Mr. Chen now has been subjected to extensive cross-examination. He knows exactly how we’re going to handle him. He knows exactly where the problems are.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
960 F.2d 1128, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 6639, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-mike-huang-john-chu-paul-park-and-kwan-yue-cheoi-ca2-1992.