continue testifying on his own behalf<\/a>.<\/p>\nKim spent more than a decade behind bars before his release \u2014 winning this court fight would wipe out the murder conviction from his record.<\/p>\n
Robert Chan \u2014 at the time a valedictorian candidate at Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton \u2014 was the architect of Tay\u2019s killing. He was apparently worried that Tay \u2014 who also went by \u201cMartin\u201d \u2014 was going to tell authorities about his plot to rob a computer salesman.<\/p>\n
Chan allegedly laid out his plan to kill Tay to four other teens involved in the killing, including Abraham Acosta, and showed them a shallow grave he had dug in Acosta\u2019s backyard for Tay and walked them through a rehearsal of the killing, authorities have said.<\/p>\n
Then, Chan persuaded Tay to meet up with him and drove Tay to the home where the attack was to take place. Chan and Acosta beat Tay for more than seven minutes while Tay cried and begged for help and then forced Tay to drink rubbing alcohol and sealed his mouth with duct tape, authorities have said. Tay choked on his own vomit.<\/p>\n
Kim, during his testimony on Monday, said he was present when Chan allegedly laid out his plan and held the rehearsal, but denied hearing most of what was said since he was playing video games on a Game Boy with earphones in. He did acknowledge hearing Chan say he was going to kill Tay, though he testified he didn\u2019t take the threat seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you believe him?\u201d asked Ray Chen, Kim\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Kim answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d Chen asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything was unbelievable,\u201d Kim said. \u201cRobert always threatened people. It was a thing he constantly did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Months before the killing, Kim said, Chan told him at the start of a school day that he had killed a classmate, even as Kim could see that classmate sitting nearby on campus. On another occasion, Kim said, Chan asked if Kim would help him get rid of a body that Kim didn\u2019t believe actually existed.<\/p>\n
The day of the killing, Kim \u2014 on Chan\u2019s order, Kim testified \u2014 followed the others and drove to near the Buena Park garage where the fatal beating took place; Kim said he fell asleep in his car parked down the street.<\/p>\n
Kim said he woke up to Chan handing him Tay\u2019s car keys and a pair of gloves: Chan ordered Kim to pick up Tay\u2019s car at Chan\u2019s home, where Tay had left it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked where Martin was,\u201d Kim said in court. \u201cHe said, \u2018What do you mean? Martin is dead, what did you think happened?\u2019 I took the keys and did what he said. At that point, I was afraid Robert was going to kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim said he followed his friends to Compton, where he left the vehicle.<\/p>\n
On the ride back to Orange County, Kim said he again asked Chan, \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t ask any questions,\u201d Chan answered, according to Kim.<\/p>\n
Another person in the car who had taken part in the fatal beating interjected, Kim added, \u201cJust be thankful you weren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Kim\u2019s time on the stand on Monday, a prosecutor repeatedly challenged his recollection of the rehearsal of the killing. Kim repeatedly said he didn\u2019t hear most of what others said because he was focused on his video game, but he did recall Chan saying he wanted Tay standing in a particular place so they could attack him, and that the plan was to \u201cget him from behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim acknowledged that Chan had spoken of killing Tay and that Chan may have referred to a hole they dug near the garage as a \u201cgrave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Kim\u2019s age, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to prison. A model prisoner, he was granted parole in 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe law at the time of Kim\u2019s conviction allowed prosecutors to argue that anyone involved in the plot that led to Tay\u2019s death could face the same charges as those who actually beat Tay to death. The law now requires that a defendant has to be aware of the killer\u2019s intent, or that there be some other evidence of their direct involvement in the killing.<\/p>\n
The Orange County District Attorney\u2019s Office has opposed Kim\u2019s effort to vacate his murder conviction. According to court papers, the prosecution is expected to argue that Kim had full knowledge about what was going to happen and helped the actual killers.<\/p>\n
Kim is scheduled to return to court on Tuesday, March 3, when the attorneys are expected to present their arguments to an Orange County Superior Court judge about whether the murder sentence should be vacated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man seeking to overturn his conviction in the so-called \u201chonor role murder\u201d more than three decades ago…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1312,723,138,100,136],"class_list":["post-201392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}