Another setback for prosecutors in 2013 killing

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A state appeals court has overturned the obstruction of justice conviction of a man charged in connection with an alleged contract killing in New Orleans.

The New Orleans Advocate reports (https://bit.ly/2ihadXl) that last week’s decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals marked the latest setback in the case for the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.

The victim of the 2013 shooting was Lien Nguyen (LEE’-uhn Nwehn). His wife was acquitted in September on a charge that she had plotted with a man to have him killed.

A jury deadlocked on charges of murder, conspiracy and solicitation against the man, Khoi Hoang (Koy Hawng). They convicted Hoang of obstruction. But the appeals court ruled Wednesday that there was insufficient evidence.

Christopher Bowman, spokesman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office, said the office would appeal the decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Bowman declined to say whether the DA’s Office would retry Hoang on the murder, solicitation and conspiracy charges should the state’s high court uphold Wednesday’s ruling. But, he said, “generally, if there is a hung jury, we will retry the other counts.”

Hoang’s attorney, Kevin Boshea, said it was clear that the jury had settled on a compromise verdict in finding Hoang guilty of obstruction, with no good evidence behind it, after deadlocking on the other counts.

“They had to come up with something,” Boshea said.

The obstruction count stemmed from claims that Hoang, 38, removed the license plate from a borrowed Nissan Titan that allegedly was used to carry Lien Nguyen to the isolated scene of his death at the hands of an unknown trigger man; and, that he also removed a security system from Nguyen’s home.

But the appeals court panel, in an opinion written by Judge Roland Belsome, found that “no reasonable juror could have determined that (Hoang) was the person responsible … based on the scant circumstantial evidence presented by the state.”