The Region - News from March 10, 1985

Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard J. Beacom accused defense attorney Alan May of turning the first murder trial of Minh Van Lam into a “circus” and threatened to take the lawyer before the State Bar if his tactics at a second trial are similar. The 21-year-old Vietnamese student’s first trial on charges of murdering Cal State Fullerton professor Edward Lee Cooperman ended last month with a hung jury. Beacom said May made a mockery of the first trial by “bombarding the jurors with such a confusing array of evidence that it’s no wonder the jurors couldn’t come up with a verdict.” Beacom said first-degree murder charges will be dropped at the second trial because all 12 jurors at the first trial voted against first-degree murder. Lam says he shot Cooperman by accident.