Ruling on a bizarre murder case dating back to 1994, the California state Supreme Court has refused to reinstate a double murder conviction against Lisa Peng over the deaths of her millionaire husband's mistress and their baby in Orange County.
Peng, now aged 49, was originally sentenced in 1995 to life in prison without possibility of parole for the fatal stabbing of Jennifer Ji, 25, and the suffocation of her five-month-old son, Kevin.
During that trial, Peng's lawyers claimed the husband was the killer. The jury was deadlocked at her first trial, but she was convicted at a retrial.
But in a 3-0 ruling last October, the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed the conviction on the grounds that police had failed to advise Peng of her rights, ignored her requests for a lawyer, demanded that she confess, and then used her husband as their agent to elicit incriminating statements.
The court unanimously denied review of a lower-court ruling that granted her a new trial on the grounds that she was coerced and deceived into incriminating herself through her husband, who cooperated with sheriff's deputies.
The bodies were found in a Mission Viejo apartment where Ji, Jim Peng's mainlander mistress, lived. He owned a company called Ranger Communications, which made CB radios in Asia.
The Pengs, parents of two sons, had divided their time between Taiwan and a home in Rancho Santa Margarita.
According to trial testimony, Lisa Peng knew of her husband's affair, which started in 1992, and had threatened to harm Ji. She once found them staying in the family home after returning from a trip to Taiwan, and later discovered the mistress' clothes and cut holes in them.
After the killings, Jim Peng agreed to help authorities by hunting through his wife's closet and then her financial records, for clues.
Then, according to a state appellate court, after Lisa Peng had been interrogated for many hours, officers sent the husband in to question her in Chinese.
Lisa Peng burst into tears and told him she had bitten his mistress in a confrontation hours before her death, and that Ji, who had 18 stab wounds, had accidentally stabbed herself after falling.
Authorities used her statement against her and matched her DNA to a bite mark on the victim's arm.
The highly-publicized trials in the mid-1990s made major headlines in Asia -- especially in Taiwan, home to both Pengs -- and even spawned a grisly Hong Kong-made murder mystery, called Lover's Lover.
The murder and subsequent trials have also been compared to the OJ Simpson case, as both involved two victims and DNA evidence.
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
Taiwanese shares yesterday posted a record daily gain of more than 1,700 points to close above 40,000 points for the first time, led by large-cap semiconductor stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) amid optimism about the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The TAIEX ended up 1,778.51 points, or 4.57 percent, at 40,705.14 after moving between 39,228.39 and 40,755.52, while the New Taiwan dollar closed up NT$0.038 at NT$31.610 per US dollar, ending three consecutive sessions of declines. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$1.007 trillion (US$31.9 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$66.98 billion
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
NON-INTERFERENCE: The US called Taiwan a trusted and capable partner, while an African Union leader urged nations to reflect on respect for sovereign choices Taiwan is a “trusted and capable” partner of the US and Taipei’s global relationships, including with Eswatini, provide significant benefits, the US Department of State said of President William Lai’s (賴清德) trip to the southern African kingdom. Lai arrived in the former Swaziland on Saturday on a surprise visit after a planned trip last month was canceled when Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar denied overflight permission for his aircraft due to Chinese pressure. “Taiwan is a trusted and capable partner of the United States and many others, and its relationships around the world provide significant benefits to the citizens of those countries,
RSS