Luong v. Alabama
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In February 2008, a Mobile County grand jury charged Lam Luong with five counts of capital murder in connection with the deaths of his four children. Luong killed his four children by throwing them off a bridge into water 100 feet below the bridge. The trial court sentenced Luong to death for each of the five capital-murder convictions. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Luong's convictions and death sentences, holding that the trial court erred by refusing to move the trial from Mobile County because, it reasoned, the pretrial publicity was presumptively prejudicial and by refusing to conduct individual questioning of the potential jurors regarding their exposure to that publicity. The Court of Criminal Appeals also held that the trial court erred in denying defense counsel funds to travel to Vietnam to investigate mitigation evidence and in admitting into evidence during the sentencing hearing a videotape simulation using sandbags approximately the weight of each child illustrating the length of time it took for each child to fall from the bridge to the water. After careful consideration of the trial court record, the Supreme Court held: (1) the trial court did not exceed the scope of its
discretion in refusing to find presumed prejudice against Luong and refusing to transfer his case on that basis; (2) the trial court did not exceed the scope of its discretion in denying Luong's request that the trial court conduct individual voir dire; (3) and because the record established that the trial court considered the reasonableness of Luong's request and provided a means for Luong to develop mitigation evidence, the trial court did not exceed the scope of its discretion in denying Luong's request for funds for his counsel to travel to Vietnam to investigate mitigation evidence; and (4) the trial court did not exceed the scope of its discretion in admitting certain videotape evidence. Accordingly, the court of Criminal Appeals was reversed.
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