Summary
SF Gate quotes SLS Professor Robert Weisberg on the use of wiretaps in criminal proceedings.
A trial that starts Monday will determine whether Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, 55-year-old leader of a venerable brotherhood in San Francisco’s Chinatown, will spend the rest of his life in prison for racketeering and murder. The federal court jury will have to choose between alternate versions of reality.
Is Chow, as he portrays himself, a reformed ex-gangster who won praise from elected officials for his good works after release from prison in 2003, only to be set up by undercover FBI agents? Or is he a thug who murdered his way to the top of the Ghee Kung Tong and ran it as a violent gang that trafficked in guns, liquor and stolen goods?
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Breyer has also rejected attempts by Chow’s lawyers to learn the names of the undercover agents who will testify at his trial, agreeing with prosecutors that identifying them could affect national security. The jury will also hear wiretaps of the agents’ financial transactions with Chow — the type of evidence that often proves highly effective, said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford criminal law professor.
Weisberg said he sometimes plays wiretaps from past trials in his law classes, and “it’s spooky to hear people saying such self-destructive things, not realizing they’re being tapped. It’s unbelievably persuasive evidence.”
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“What you can expect,” Weisberg said, “is Tony Serra, a larger-than-life character, varying between trying to make things political, then sentimental.”
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