How Toyota’s Recall May Save a Man from Jail
Just when you think these Toyota recall stories can’t get any more bizarre, we learn about how the defective accelerators and all this negative publicity have lawyers looking into a previously closed case – where one man could be found innocent after a guilty murder conviction and jail time.
It was June 10, 2006 in Lino Lakes, Minnesota. Koua Fong Lee was driving his 1996 Toyota Camry when it unexpectedly sped up an interstate ramp, slamming into the back of an Oldsmobile and killing three people. Lee insisted he did everything he could to stop the car. “I know 100 percent in my heart that I took my foot off the gas and that I was stepping on the brakes as hard as possible,” Lee said Wednesday in an interview at the state prison Minn. “When the brakes were looked at and we were told that nothing was wrong with the brakes, I was shocked.”
Javis Trice Adams, 33, and his 10-year-old son, Javis Adams Jr., died at the scene. Adams’ 6-year-old niece, Devyn Bolton, was paralyzed from the neck down, and died shortly after Lee was convicted.
A jury of his peers didn’t believe him, and Lee was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Now the new revelation of Toyota safety problems has Lee, lawyers and the families of those killed during that fateful night rethinking the case. Relatives are also planning to sue Toyota. “The prosecutor who sent Lee to prison said he thinks the case merits another look,” according to MSNBC.
“The uncertainty could wind up helping Lee and others. Attorneys for both the 32-year-old St. Paul man as well as the victims’ families say they’re encouraged by the evidence that the problems went beyond models that originally were recalled…If Lee’s car was defective, “We don’t want an innocent man sitting in prison,” said Phil Carruthers, who prosecuted the case for Ramsey County.”
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