Xiu Jin Teng - Freeman Murder Defendant?

[Burnaby49]

On February 29, 2012 the body of Dong Huang was found in a basement storage room wrapped in a blanket and plastic sheeting. He'd been strangled. His hands and feet had been tied up and he'd been administered a large dose of zopiclone, a sleeping pill prescribed for insomnia. Xiu Jing Teng, his wife, had triggered the search for his body by abruptly starting to pack up and move out of their apartment in Toronto. When confronted by her landlord Teng said Huang was off in Hong Kong but, when shown his body, said that he'd died of a heart attack. There was no evidence he had any heart disease. In a very unfortunate timing coincidence Teng had bought about $2,000,000 of life insurance on her husband shortly before his death.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canad ... nce-lawyer

As soon as the trial started she demanded a lawyer.

Xiu Jin Teng, who is pleading not guilty to killing Dong Huang, had two fiery outbursts as the trial formally began in Ontario Superior Court in downtown Toronto.

Within seconds of jurors first taking their seats, Teng stood up and snapped, “I have one thing to declare. You must know I have right to my own defence lawyer,” she said, addressing Judge Ian MacDonnell. “You are unlawful trial judge, you should not deny, reject, my constitutional rights.

“I refuse to participate. You should remove yourself from your role now.”

Teng then sat down.

However, while she'd demanding a lawyer, she's also refusing to accept one.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comme ... ter-for-it

And, as that article indicates, she seems to have done her homework on the court system. She continued these antics during the first day of trial.

But when the judge asked her to stand, Teng said in a loud voice, “I reject, I refuse to take part. You are unlawful judge. I reject the unlawful trial.

“Don’t ask me any questions,” she shouted. “And I have no defence lawyer.”

It was just after the morning break that Teng had her second outburst in front of the jurors. The judge was asking her if she wanted to cross-examine the first witness, and again, she berated him.

“I said, don’t ask me questions until I have defence lawyer!”

The judge gently reminded her he needed a simple yes or no answer.

“It depends,” Teng said. “If you give the jury the context of unlawful trial, if you do not, you are risking fooling the jury.”

MacDonnell again cautioned the jurors to ignore her remarks, and said wearily, “I take her answer as maintaining her refusal to participate.”

However, for what it's worth, she's not entirely unrepresented;

The judge has appointed a lawyer, a so-called “friend of the court,” to assist Teng. That is Richard Litkowski, who asked Gu several questions in cross-examination.

Refusing to participate and arguing that the court is unlawful are two standard freeman defenses. Michael Millar was constantly yammering away that the Supreme Court of British Columbia is not a lawful court. Given that this seems to be a prominant case (Christie Blanchford, the reporter, is nationally known for her trial reports and analysis) we should soon have more information to judge how this is going to play out.

A few points to make on the Canadian court system. Firstly the murder occurred in February 2012 and Teng was charged with first degree murder within a few days. It has taken close to five years to get what seems like a simple case to trial. Second this is being reported during the trial itself. Readers may have noted that in all the jury trials I've attended there was a publication ban on proceedings until the end of the trial. This, supposedly, is to stop the jurors from being exposed to any information except the evidence presented at trial. My cases have been trivial, tax evasion mostly, but this is murder and no publication ban. Trials are a provincial responsibility and I have to assume that Ontario has different rules than British Columbia.

[arayder]

To my untrained eye it seems Teng, rather than being a freewoman, is trying everything she can think of as part of her defense. Claiming that the judge is unlawful is just one of those things. She also seems to be working the jury selection angle.

I don't know how it works in Canada but here in the states she would be seen as a defendant likely to claim several different procedural errors upon appeal.

[Burnaby49]

To my untrained eye it seems Teng, rather than being a freewoman, is trying everything she can think of as part of her defense. Claiming that the judge is unlawful is just one of those things. She also seems to be working the jury selection angle.

I don't know how it works in Canada but here in the states she would be seen as a defendant likely to claim several different procedural errors upon appeal.

Could be, we should find out soon. Blanchford generally attends entire trials and reports on them. Nothing in Today's paper. I doubt that demanding a lawyer while refusing to have a lawyer represent her will get her much traction on appeal.

[arayder]

. . .I doubt that demanding a lawyer while refusing to have a lawyer represent her will get her much traction on appeal.

I can hear it now, "I had inadequate counsel. . .me!"

[grixit]

Doesn't she know she's contributing to an ethnic stereotype?

[Burnaby49]

Bit of an update;

In the prosecution’s opening address, Levy told the jury that, at autopsy, it was determined that cause of death was ligature strangulation. Bleach had been poured over the body. Green twine was tied around Dong Huang’s neck. There were ligature marks around his wrists and ankles, bruising to the head, and a puncture wound on his arms. Toxicology tests showed Zopiclone — an insomnia medication — in his blood.

Police would recover the following items from the apartment: a metal hand saw, plastic wrap, disposable gloves, a hydraulic jack, nails, a utility winch, rubber mats, cables with locks and a roll of green twine.

She's still acting up.

https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016 ... manno.html

[Arthur Rubin]

. . .I doubt that demanding a lawyer while refusing to have a lawyer represent her will get her much traction on appeal.

I can hear it now, "I had inadequate counsel. . .me!"

It's been done. It occasionally works in the US; if I recall correctly, the reason for the appeal is that the judge should have found she was not competent to defend herself.

[Jeffrey]

a metal hand saw, plastic wrap, disposable gloves, a hydraulic jack, nails, a utility winch, rubber mats, cables with locks and a roll of green twine

Someone really wanted him dead.

[morrand]

. . .I doubt that demanding a lawyer while refusing to have a lawyer represent her will get her much traction on appeal.

I can hear it now, "I had inadequate counsel. . .me!"

It's been done. It occasionally works in the US; if I recall correctly, the reason for the appeal is that the judge should have found she was not competent to defend herself.

Not that I should know what I'm talking about, but that would seem to slam headlong into Faretta, wouldn't it?

[Burnaby49]

There's a way for her to beat the rap!

As I've reported elsewhere (and won't go into detail again) the Supreme Court of Canada just set down new rules on the allowable time period between charges being laid and trial before undue delay kicks in. The new allowable times are 18 months for provincial court cases and 30 months for superior courts. It is all laid out in the Jordan case if anyone is interested;

R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27
http://canlii.ca/t/gsds3

There are two critical issues in these rules that are throwing the Canadian judicial system into turmoil.

1 - Cases in process are not grandfathered under the old rules.
2 - There are no transition provisions for cases already in process.

So cases are being tossed out wholesale, including murder trials;

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/senate- ... -1.3877101

Two of the tax evasion cases I've been reporting on have already been affected. In one the charges were stayed for delay just a week before the judge was to give his verdict and the second had a Jordan hearing which allowed the Crown to proceed, but it was very close.

Xiu Jin Teng is being tried at Queen's Bench in Ontario, a superior court. This mean that the system had 30 months to get her trial done with. She was charged in March 2012 putting her at 56 months and counting. So she has a shot at getting off on delay but it is quite a complex process. Essentially any delay attributable to the defendant is not part of the 30 months. The idea is that the defendant is prejudiced by delay caused by the Crown and the court system but any delay caused by the defendant is the defendant's responsibility. So at delay hearings the Crown does its best to persuade the court that the defendant is responsible and defense tries to dump it all on the Crown and the inherent delay in the court system. So the 56 months would have to be analyzed and parceled up between responsible parties to determine if the 30 month limit had been reached. As I understand it, if it has, she'd get off. But she'll need a lawyer for that.

[Arthur Rubin]

My apologies if this turns out to be a duplicate post

I can hear it now, "I had inadequate counsel. . .me!"

It's been done. It occasionally works in the US; if I recall correctly, the reason for the appeal is that the judge should have found she was not competent to defend herself.

Not that I should know what I'm talking about, but that would seem to slam headlong into Faretta, wouldn't it?

I think the case I remember involved the fact the judge didn't hold a hearing as to whether defendant was competent to conduct her own defense, or perhaps it was a case where the defendant become incompetent to participate in her own defense during the trial. Or I could be completely wrong.

[Burnaby49]

Another installment;

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comme ... lf-defence

Not much freemanish about it apart from the mysterious reason she doesn't have a lawyer and this comment to the judge;

"“You lost your jurisdiction!” Teng shrieked."

The argument that the Supreme Court of British Columbia had no juridsiction in British Columbia was a key point in the defenses of Poriskyites Keith Lawson and Michael Millar.

As an aside the jury trials of Lawson and Russell Porisky took place in a Vancouver courtroom very similar in design to the one in the picture apart from the wood paneling being a bit lighter.

[Burnaby49]

Turns out that this isn't a freeman type issue but I thought I'd update anyhow since the trial is almost over and we have more information, now that the jury is sequestered, about how batsit crazy the trial was. Juror number 3 sounds like a problem that might result in a mistrial.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/chris ... ter-lawyer

I'll post the verdict. Should be soon.

[notorial dissent]

At least they got through the trial in spite of all her histrionics.

Doesn't sound like they reviewed the jurors very well if they are having that kind of problem with one of them.

[Burnaby49]

Guilty as charged;

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/chris ... ter-lawyer

[notorial dissent]

Don't think that went quite the way she expected.

[Burnaby49]

Largely because of our Constitution Canadian trials take forever. Note that Xiu Jin Teng was charged with first degree murder in March 2012. The process between charging her and her convicting took almost five years. My Poriskyites have a similar timeline and one, Dr. Balogh, the Poriskyite dentist, got off from the charges on excessive delay between charging him and his trial. Most of the time that I've sat in court reporting on trials has been enduring Constitutional challenges rather than any actual focus on the offense and evidence.

Yet when trials finally go to jury deliberations they seem to be over in an instant. Russell Porisky is appealing his conviction for tax evasion and counseling fraud on the grounds that the jury didn't spend enough time deliberating on the Crown's evidence. But here we have a first degree murder charge with a minimum 25 year sentence and the jury was done in five hours.

[notorial dissent]

I'm pretty sure that Porisky will eventually argue that the color of the charging documents wasn't right, so therefore it is void, but ho much time is enough for a deliberation, really?? I mean unless they went in the jury room and came right back out they obviously spent some time on something. Maybe his stuff wasn't so confusing to the jury and they all saw it for what it was fairly quickly, who knows?