The Best I Could (16 page)

Unlike civil cases, criminal cases can have severe penalties for those who are convicted. When your clients face the death penalty or life imprisonment, it makes you focus your mind and efforts. I had my first taste of this with Tampines Raja. The primary job of criminal lawyers like me is to ensure that the accused receives fair and just treatment. To do that, I need to have a full grasp of all aspects of criminal law.

I think you need to be a different breed to be a criminal lawyer, especially in Singapore, where many lawyers seek to specialise in areas that are more lucrative. There are only a few lawyers in Singapore who specialise in criminal law. I think there may be about 200 lawyers altogether in Singapore who take on criminal cases even though it is not their area of specialisation. These lawyers may be helping a family friend or doing some pro bono work or perhaps have been assigned to a criminal case by the State.

It is often said that people who want to engage a lawyer to handle a criminal case should not get one whose primary practice is something other than criminal defence. This explains why I get a large number of cases and I am featured in the press very often. I can’t help it if editors like to devote column space to cases involving murders, sex crimes and crimes of passion. The exposure is not something I seek consciously, but some of the cases I am involved in understandably generate a lot of interest in the media. I have no control over that.

For example, in June 2007, I was assigned by the State to act for Tan Chor Jin in his appeal against his death sentence for killing nightclub boss Lim Hock Soon. Tan had requested that I conduct his appeal after he unsuccessfully defended himself in the capital trial. The State assigns lawyers to those charged with capital offences if they cannot afford a lawyer’s fees. Tan’s wife had also asked me, separately, to defend him, but as the State had assigned the case to me, Tan’s family would not have to pay my fees. Instead, the State would cover my fees.

Tan, also known as the One-eyed Dragon because he is blind in the right eye, was sentenced to death for discharging a Beretta pistol with intent to injure Lim Hock Soon. If Tan had asked for me to defend him in his original capital case, I wouldn’t have accepted. I knew Lim casually and I would have felt uncomfortable having to cross-examine his wife during the trial. Such a situation would not arise in an appeal as no cross-examination of witnesses is required. I only have to look for loopholes in the judgement and the applications of law to argue the case in Tan’s defence. The One-eyed Dragon’s appeal is described later in this book.

I am known to take on complicated cases, with a degree of success. I do get sentences reduced on appeal because my experience allows me to spot errors in judgement. I also know enough of the law to get charges amended. This is not the easiest thing to do in Singapore courts, but the numbers are increasing especially with the new Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong on board. Perhaps it’s my track record that makes me a sort of magnet for accused people from all walks of life. I also have a reputation as a fighter. I fight for my clients till I’ve exhausted all possible legal avenues and usually myself in the process.

Over the last three decades, I have defended many, many different kinds of people, some of whom were accused of the most heinous crimes. Some may have been guilty of what they were charged with, some probably weren’t, but I never take the high moral ground when it comes to defending an accused person. I always accept or reject cases on a case-by-case basis. To me, there can be no other way if you respect the law and believe that everyone deserves a fair trial regardless of how serious a crime has been committed. If I pick and choose my clients, I believe my practice will fail because people will start to lose faith in me. For instance, they wouldn’t call me out for drinks to discuss their problems, as some do, and eventually retain me as their lawyer if they didn’t have this faith in me. I’ve become friends with many of my clients even after I’ve lost their cases. Like Tampines Raja, they see that I do my best for them and their appreciation is heartfelt even when the prosecution’s case is stronger and they are found guilty. It’s quite well-known in legal circles that my health is not the best and I’m beset by a variety of ailments. I have a team of four specialist doctors at Gleneagles Hospital who keep me going. I take about 30 pills a day, including vitamins and supplements. In my trouser pocket, I also carry a little bottle containing a white pill that when taken will prevent my heart from seizing up. Knowing about my ill-health, some of my clients who have been sentenced to death have offered me their organs. Anthony Ler, with his signature smile, offered me his kidneys before he was hanged.

In fact, my clients show their gratitude to me in many ways after their cases are concluded. The chief executive officer of a listed company whom I defended with some degree of success takes me out for drives in his fancy cars. Others just hug me and thank me at the end of the case. Once, when I got a client’s death sentence squashed, his family came to me and said that I was a god to them. They knelt in front of me and touched my feet. The victim’s family, on the other hand, cursed and swore at me, but that is to be expected. By the same token, I’ve received letters containing death threats. I don’t take much notice of them though I do report the threats to the police, just in case. I’ve even been told that someone has carried a
kavadi
during the Thaipusam festival to take revenge on me so that I will die. Of course, this sort of thing worries my family, but I see it as part of my job. You have to take the good with the bad.

I think I turn down about 10 per cent of the cases that I’m offered. For me to consider taking on a case, I will always insist that the accused has to be honest with me. How can I defend him in court if he lies to me? It makes me look bad if the prosecution picks up on something he didn’t tell me or lied to me about. This can have nasty repercussions on my defence of the accused. My client must also trust that I will be honest with him and keep our communications confidential at all times. This has to apply to all discussions made during the relationship, and even after the case has been concluded and the relationship has ceased. If a client doesn’t have this trust in me and shows this distrust by questioning my every move, I will reject the case.

I also need to find some chemistry with the client. I feel chemistry is often an overlooked factor in lawyer-client relationships. I need to know all aspects of my client to be of best use to him or her. If the right chemistry is not there, the client may not be as forthright with me and that can lead to problems further down the road. So, if I don’t feel especially comfortable after talking to someone, I will not take on the case.

Sometimes, the family and friends of the accused interfere too much and that puts me off too. I’ve had cases where family members would call me practically every hour which is irritating. In some cases, the accused people are very arrogant, especially when they come to see me in my office. That turns me off too. If they show remorse, they definitely have a better chance of hiring me. One interesting thing I’ve noticed in my career is that when I go to see someone in prison, he or she is invariably remorseful. I suppose the prison experience is a humbling one, as the accused soon realises that arrogance will not take him or her far. I saw that first-hand too when I was in prison.

What are some of the cases I’ve rejected? It’s not easy to recall. I’m not a busybody in the sense that after I’ve rejected a case, I don’t really follow up on it. I just don’t have the time to do that. I remember a case involving acid thrown at a trade union leader. The victim was the father-in-law of Justice M P H Rubin, who was a Supreme Court judge and is now Singapore’s High Commissioner to South Africa. Justice Rubin wanted me to hold a watching brief for the family of his father-in-law. A watching brief is an instruction to a lawyer to follow a case on behalf of a client who is not directly involved in a case as a defendant. Justice Rubin told me that the family of the accused would most probably come to see me and ask me to take on their case, adding that they were rich enough to pay my fees. Sure enough, that same day, the family visited me. I declined saying that I was already holding a watching brief for the family of the deceased.

On another occasion, I was in the Subordinate Courts when someone grabbed my hand. It was a middle-aged woman. She was dabbing a handkerchief on her puffy eyes. Before I could say or do anything, she pleaded with me to take on her son’s case. She said he was a good boy and it was his first offence and so on—the usual things doting mothers say about their recalcitrant sons. I discovered that the boy had been caught red-handed in the act of stealing. It was pointless for me to take up the case because he was going to be found guilty as charged and sentenced to time in prison. Her son also had a previous conviction for theft. I told her it would be futile to hire a lawyer. Obviously she disagreed with me and engaged one. As expected, they lost the case and he received a higher sentence. Not long after that, I chanced upon her at the corridors of the Subordinate Courts. She was weeping and when she saw me, she wept even more. I suppose she was thinking of my advice to her.

Though I’m probably best known in Singapore for representing clients in murder cases, my case load has been diverse. I’ve handled every kind of crime you can possibly think of and probably worse. If you ask me how many cases I have handled during my career, I couldn’t tell you for sure. They have to be in the thousands. I couldn’t even work out an accurate number for this book.

Among the many requests for representation that I receive, the more common ones are for drug-related offences. As in murder cases, the penalties can be very serious. I must say I dislike drug traffickers. I support the death penalty for those who sell hardcore drugs because they exploit people’s weaknesses. They obviously don’t care about the dangers of drug addiction and the harm it can cause addicts and their families. Still, I can’t turn down a request to represent them in court just for those reasons. No matter how bad they are, drug traffickers still have the right to a proper defence. There is some frustration with defending drug offence cases in Singapore because the prosecution seems to have an advantage in many of them even before hearings start. I’ve also seen first-hand how judges’ hands are tied by the laws that govern drug offences in Singapore. In the Misuse of Drugs Act, death by hanging is mandatory for anyone aged 18 years or over who is convicted of carrying 15 grams of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine, more than 500 grams of cannabis or more than 250 grams of methamphetamines. It is a well-known fact that Singapore’s stand on drug trafficking is controversial around the world. Darshan Singh, for example, is reputed to have hanged more than 850 condemned prisoners in his career and is also believed to have hanged 18 prisoners in one day.

Critics of Singapore’s liberal application of the death penalty for offences which are treated with less severity in many other countries say that Singapore has reversed the burden of proof, requiring the accused to prove they are innocent. In many other countries, it is a fundamental human right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. There are still many inconsistencies in the way the courts treat drug offenders. I brought this up in 2005 in the inaugural issue of
Pro Bono
, the newsletter of the Association of Criminal Lawyers of Singapore. I cited the big cocaine bust in Seletar Camp involving a former internet entrepreneur. The accused pleaded guilty to a single charge of cocaine consumption and had his 12-month sentence reduced to eight months on appeal. I was approached to handle his appeal but there was a conflict of interest because I represented Guiga Laroussi, the man who had supplied him with the cocaine. In the appeal by the former internet entrepreneur, Justice V K Rajah ruled that all first offenders should be jailed for six to 18 months. Fines, he said, should be imposed only “sparingly” and in “purely exceptional” cases involving Class A drugs or hardcore drugs like heroin and cocaine. But I wrote that the court’s ruling did little to clarify the position on sentencing. Justice Rajah did not clarify what he meant by “sparingly” or what constituted a “purely exceptional” case.

I pointed out that there was a “clear conflict” between the views expressed in the former internet entrepreneur’s case and in four other cases heard by then Chief Justice Yong Pung How, who has since retired from the bench. In an earlier case involving Ecstasy abuser Ooi Joo Keong, the Chief Justice upheld a decision by Senior District Judge Richard Magnus to jail him for 12 months, ruling that first offenders should be jailed for 12 to 18 months. I pointed out that three other cases sent out different signals. In a case involving insurance manager Ng Kheng Tiak, who had a couple of puffs of cannabis, the Chief Justice fined him $20,000 and set aside the 12-month prison term imposed by the Lower Court. In another case, footballer Muhammad Razali Ishak’s one-year jail term for smoking cannabis at a birthday party was set aside and replaced with two years’ probation, a $5,000 bond by his parents and 100 hours of community service. Polytechnic student Pililis Nikiforos escaped an eight-month jail term in 2001 for morphine use and the Chief Justice instead imposed a $5,000 fine. Our take on this is that when sentencing an offender, which of these decisions should district judges follow?

Another problem in my view is the use of entrapment to snare drug offenders. I believe it should be allowed to a certain degree, otherwise you’ll never catch the crooks. But the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) should not overdo it. I’ve said on record before that I think the CNB crossed the line in the case of insurance agent Teo Ya Lin in 2003. She was pressured by an undercover CNB officer to procure an Ecstasy pill for him, promising that he would buy an insurance policy from her in return. Teo got him a pill and the result for her troubles was a prison term of more than six years. This girl had no intention of selling drugs until she was persuaded by the officer. Under normal circumstances, she would not have been categorised as a trafficker. There is also the issue of whether the CNB officer should be guilty of abettment for the offence. He instigated the offence by putting the idea into her head through misrepresentation. Indeed, there is a lot of grey area in Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act. I believe this has partly to do with the fact that the law is so out of sync with other First World countries which Singapore aspires to be.