Minnesota Driver of Fatal Camry Crash Wants Retrial
March 11, 2010 (by Horatio Algren) According to reports a man that has been convicted of a fatal crash wants a retrial in light of Toyota Camry unintended acceleration. Jurors are rethinking their decision in the case.
A man convicted of a fatal crash serving eight years in prison identified as Kuoa Fong Lee age 32 was convicted after a 2006 crash that took the lives of three people wants his case tried again in light of the Toyota Camry unintended acceleration defects.
Lee is an immigrant from Thailand that came to the U.S. in 2004 and at the time of the crash was exiting a Minnesota highway on his way home from church when he said he tried to slow down and the vehicle accelerated. At the time Lee had been driving for one year when the fatal accident happened.
The policed estimated that at the time of the crash Lee had been going between 72 and 92 miles per hour. The Camry Lee was driving struck an Oldsmobile with five people, two of the people died at the scene of the crash, a father and his 9 year old son. One of the other passengers a 6 year old suffered a broken neck and died a year and a half after the crash.
Lee said he tried to step on the brakes but nothing happened, in court prosecutors argued that he stepped on the accelerator instead of the break after an expert found nothing wrong with the brakes.
Brent Schafer, Lee’s attorney stated he is hoping to be in court as early as April to argue for a new trial. Schafer said he has already been contacted by two other attorneys from New Jersey and Oregon with cases that are similar, and while Lee’s case might be the first of its kind it’s doubtful it will be the last.
Schafer finds it difficult to believe that jurors would now come to the same decision thinking that Lee accidentally stepped on the accelerator, instead of it being a Toyota vehicle with the Toyota unintended acceleration problem. The one thing that Schafer believes that can come from all of this is that an innocent man will be released from jail.
Three of the jurors in Lee’s case have spoken out to the media in Minneapolis and agree with Lee’s attorney, stating if they had known the Toyota Camry could have had a defective accelerator their verdict would have been different. One juror, who asked to be identified as juror number six also stated that people need to understand that they were not presented with that evidence at his trial and that, could have been an issue that changed things.
There as been no comment from Toyota and a relative of the victims would not comment, but some have spoken publicly in favor of a retrial for Lee. The Toyota Camry that Lee was driving did not have the electronic throttle controls that are the main focus of the unintended acceleration, his 1996 Camry had a traditional gas pedal that controlled the throttle with a cable.
There were however 5,145 of these vehicles recalled shortly after hitting the marked with cruise control equipment that failed causing the vehicle to gain speed. The president of Safety Research & Strategies Sean Kane stated he has tried for a long time to reach the public about unintended acceleration.
The company does research for trial attorneys and believes this has been a real problem and that law enforcement, government and automakers dismiss these claims till now.
