A manhunt took place this week not far from the Lino Lakes prison cell of Koua Fong Lee, a St. Paul man serving time for a 2006 car accident in which he lost control of his Toyota Camry on a freeway exit ramp and rammed another vehicle, killing three inside.
Using a SWAT team, a helicopter and officers from 10 agencies, authorities combed the quiet neighborhoods in nearby Blaine in a fruitless search for L.C. Wesley Armstrong, who fled police after a traffic stop, allegedly stabbed a police dog and is considered armed and dangerous. Armstrong was convicted last year of second-degree manslaughter after he began arguing with a pregnant woman in the passenger seat of the car he was driving and took his hands off the steering wheel to grab her. The car flipped and crashed, killing the woman. Armstrong also was convicted of first-degree burglary in 2009.
For those convictions, Armstrong spent a total of four months in prison.
Lee, now 32, had no criminal record, no prior driving offenses, no drugs or alcohol in his system and steadfastly maintained that he'd pumped the brake as his car rocketed through the intersection. Prosecutors and Lee's defense attorney concluded that he'd mistakenly hit the gas pedal instead. For this, Lee is serving eight years in prison.
Shown the newspaper story about Armstrong's four-month sentence, Lee grew quiet and looked around the Lino Lakes prison conference room in bewilderment on Thursday. Through his attorney, he's also followed the Star Tribune's series on drunken driving, and noted that drunken drivers who caused fatal crashes received far less lengthy jail sentences than he did. Through an interpreter, Lee noted that Armstrong and drunken drivers deliberately did something that caused crashes. Lee doesn't downplay the tragedy his car caused, but he also would like to know why the punishments are so different.
"When I read articles like this, I don't understand," he said. "I feel that there is no justice for me."
It's getting harder and harder to argue that Lee, a Laotian immigrant, has been dealt with justly by his adopted country. Rarely does a case come along that raises so many troubling questions about the criminal-justice system. Richard Frase, a professor of criminal law at the University of Minnesota, calls it the "perfect storm" and intends to use it as a case study when teaching next fall. "It really illustrates a lot of weaknesses in the system," he said.
Lee's 2007 trial occurred before the sudden acceleration problems with Toyota vehicles surfaced. Lacking mechanical evidence of sudden acceleration or brake failure, the Ramsey County jury not only bought the argument that Lee had hit the wrong pedal, but also concluded that it was gross negligence -- a stern judgment for a mistake. The Toyota recalls might have been enough to create reasonable doubt among jurors when Lee was tried, but without mechanical evidence from Lee's car, the judge might conclude that the recalls aren't enough to meet the legal threshold for a new trial now.
