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No good fame for Money and fame were not the reasons Jerel Fonseca took on the Herculean task of defending Byran Uyesugi, who was sentenced this week to life in prison without parole for the worst multiple murders in Hawaii's history.
Uyesugi attorney
Strangers hassled him,
and his children were
teased at schoolBy Suzanne Tswei
Star-BulletinIn fact, Uyesugi's lead attorney says he lost income and his good name trying to convince a jury that his client was insane, and therefore not guilty of shooting and killing seven co-workers at the Xerox warehouse on Nimitz Highway.
Because of the demanding work, his law firm could not take on cases that required constant attention -- the type of work that generates regular income and is always welcomed by lawyers.
As for fame, "this is not the way to get famous. If anything, it brought the wrong kind of fame," the 46-year-old Fonseca said.
Strangers recognized him on the streets and demanded to know why he was defending a cold-blooded killer. At the office, there were accusing phone messages and letters (but no outright threats). His daughter, 14, and son, 12, endured teasing in school.
"The kids in school, some of them gave (my daughter) a hard time. Whenever kids tease each other, it's not a pleasant thing, even if the kids say it jokingly. It's not something they want to go through.
"People can get to you after awhile, but you try to control yourself," Fonseca said, explaining how his parents had taught him to deal with controversy. "You try to deal with it rationally. You don't fly off the handle, you don't beat somebody up because you don't like their opinion."
He knew the odds were stacked against Uyesugi before he even looked at the evidence: the well-publicized manhunt and stakeout, the number of deaths, strong public sentiment, heavy media coverage.
Fonseca listened to news reports of the shooting as the case unfolded on radio broadcasts on Nov. 2 last year.
From his office window, Fonseca could see police officers hurrying to the Xerox downtown office to secure the area, fearing Uyesugi would go there to shoot others after gunning down seven coworkers in the Xerox warehouse.
"You couldn't help but follow all the news reports," Fonseca said. "It was on all the radio stations. At the time, all I knew was what was being reported...I never thought he would become my client. I just thought it was incredible news."
Late that afternoon, after Uyesugi surrendered to police, Fonseca received a call from a law school classmate, Wendell Choy, asking if he'd be interested in representing Uyesugi.
"I didn't know what to think," Fonseca said. "I had mixed emotions. It was part excitement; it was part dread. I realized it was going to be a very important case, a notorious case."
The next day, Fonseca and his partner, Rodney Ching, met Uyesugi for the first time in the police cellblock. That afternoon they decided to accept the case.
"I didn't have any reservations about taking on this case. I thought of it more as a challenge," Fonseca said. It was more challenging than he could have imaged as he began reviewing some 8,000 pages of evidence against Uyesugi.
"The discovery was voluminous. There were police reports from every police officer who had anything to do with the case, down to the officers directing traffic at the Xerox building, hundreds of photographs (of the crime scene). (It was) more than I've seen in any other case, and we had to go through every single page."
In addition, Fonseca and Ching had to review reports from their own experts and investigations.
"We were working seven days a week, 15 to 17 hours a day. If my family didn't see me for days at a time, they knew it was part of the job," Fonseca said.
Fonseca declined to reveal how many hours his firm spent on the case or the cost of defending Uyesugi, other than to say the firm has been paid in full.
After Uyesugi was found guilty of the killings, Fonseca and Ching met with him to go over his options, which included appealing the conviction.
Uyesugi is still a client, although Fonseca believes their professional relationship will end soon. It appears Uyesugi would be seeking to appeal his conviction through the public defender's office, Fonseca said.To this day, Fonseca believes Uyesugi was insane at the time of the killings and still is insane, he said.
"Through this whole time, he never showed any emotions at any point. He was very quiet, very nonthreatening. That's just his personality. I think people think he didn't have any feelings, but that's not the case. I think he didn't show his feelings."
Fonseca had to keep his feelings in check, as well, during the trial as prosecutors and witnesses described the gruesome killings and tearful family members recalled the victims.
"As a human being, you had to be affected," he said. "You just have to try to set that aside and represent your client. It's your job. You can't show emotions in court, you can't let the jury see it's getting to you."
Fonseca said the case has not changed his life, but he is more aware of how fast things can change.
"It makes you think about the people who were shot, how fast things changed for them and their family. They just went to work, and within a short time, they were killed."