The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Aday, November 5, 1985
se after wrong man almost convicted in slaying
ucing capital of the
nty is now home to
plants, high-tech-
,nd an increasing
cents from the
base of Atlanta,
he southwest.
rney, is a New
f, Richard V.
Republican
.a memory, is
he mayor of
:ow, is black.
traditionally
5
-sheriff's office brought Nguyen to
court Oct. 22, he assumed it was
Tieu.
Mecum said that the jail staff
were told to add Tieu to the list of
defendants to be sent to the court-
house but that someone had forgot-
ten. Nguyen was already in the
courthouse for his theft trial. When
the murder trial began first, "the
court officer went in there, and
there was a Vietnamese, and he as-
sumed that was the defendant," the
sheriff said.
As the trial proceeded, Nguyen
was identified as Tieu by several
witnesses, including the victim's
roommate and the officer who had
witnessed Tieu's statement to inves-
tigators.
"Think about it as the witness
might," Udolf said. "She sees an Ori-
ental man over there. She assumes
nobody is going to be tricking her
or playing games. So she says that's
the right person."
Both Udolf and Benton say that
it was only when Cathy Pemberton,
a witness in the theft case, hap-
pened into the courtroom, saw
Nguyen in the wrong trial and sent
a message to the prosecution table,
that the mistake was noticed.
Right now at Sheppard Dental
Centers. complete braces (including
But Mecum contends that his jail
staff caught the error when asked
to bring Nguyen for his theft trial
and the jailers discovered he was
not there.
However the error was caught,
the mistrial is the talk of Hall
County. Those in the Vietnamese
community, interpreter Lam said,
are not disturbed that they might
all look alike to white people here
because it is the same in reverse.
"When I see Americans, one and an-
other, they look alike to me," she
explained, smiling. "They under-
stand that. They not angry. But they
think there is danger."
Tieu's lawyer, Benton, however,
sees an advantage, at least foriis
client. At the next trial, sometime
this month, Benton will be able to
confront a parade of prosecution
witnesses with the fact that they fll
identified someone else as the mpr-
derer. "Nothing that has happened
thus far has injured my client," he
said.
As for the hapless Nguyen,
whose trial is to be rescheduled,
Benton said, it would do no good to
tell the jury trying him for theft
that he had also been identified as a
murderer.
