Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

High-profile
lawyer to represent
isle defendant

The Texas man specializes
in death-penalty cases

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A federal magistrate has appointed Texas lawyer Richard Burr, an expert in capital punishment cases, to represent Richard Chong in his recent motion to withdraw his guilty plea and stand trial.

Burr represented Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh during his trial and more recently Eugene Frederick Boyce, a drifter who was found unfit to stand trial for the slaying of a Big Island park ranger last December.

Chong, charged in what would have been Hawaii's first death penalty case in decades, pleaded guilty under a plea agreement for using a firearm in the 1997 killing of William Noa Jr. in a drug-trafficking offense.

U.S. Magistrate Barry Kurren said yesterday it would be appropriate that Chong be represented in his limited motion by a death-penalty-qualified attorney because of the seriousness of the case. He set a status conference for August 8 to set a date for Chong's motion.

Burr of Houston is expected to meet with Chong as early as next week. Honolulu attorney Birney Bervar has agreed to be co-counsel.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson had argued against appointment of another death-penalty-qualified attorney for Chong, saying it would cost unnecessary time and expense. He had argued last week that Chong's motion, just days before he was to be sentenced, was simply a ploy to allow him to stay in Hawaii longer in hopes the death penalty will be dismissed.

Chong was to have been sentenced to a life term without parole yesterday for pleading guilty to Noa's murder.

But U.S. District Judge Alan Kay put off the sentencing, saying it was of "grave importance" that Chong be represented in his motion.

Three attorneys who represented Chong for the past year and a half, including Marcia Morrissey, a death-penalty-qualified attorney from Santa Monica, Calif., said they could not represent him because they felt his plea was "in his best interest" and he agreed to the plea knowingly.