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.Luong v. State, 199 So.3d 98 (Ala.Crim.App.2013). This Court granted the State's petition to review the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Albarran, 96 So. 3d at 149-50 (emphasis added). In support of his claim that he did not have the requisite level of understanding to make a valid waiver of his Miranda rights, Ruiz cites only Luong v. State, 199 So.3d 98, 136-37 (Ala. Crim. App. 2013), rev'd on other grounds, 199 So.3d 139 (Ala. 2014). Luong is not directly on point, however, because it concerned a defendant with limited English proficiency who was advised of his rights in English; moreover, the Court concluded that the defendant had voluntarily waived those rights.
In response, the State presented testimony from its own polling expert, Verne Kennedy, who had reviewed Ingram's report. Kennedy testified that, based on the methodology used in the poll and the fact that there was a similar case in Mobile County involving a father killing his children that had also received widespread publicity, see Luong v. State, 199 So.3d 98 (Ala. Crim. App. 2013), rev'd, 199 So.3d 139 (Ala. 2014), opinion after remand, 199 So.3d 173 (Ala. Crim. App. 2015), Ingram had overstated the percentage of people who believed DeBlase was guilty. Kennedy estimated that roughly 40% of those who had heard about the case had formed an opinion that DeBlase was guilty of killing his children, a substantially smaller percentage, Kennedy said, than in the Luong case, in which 71% of those who had heard about the case had formed an opinion that the defendant was guilty.
On appeal, this Court reversed Luong's convictions after finding that Luong had been denied his constitutional right to a impartial jury when the circuit court denied his motion for a change of venue based on pretrial publicity.See Luong v. State, 199 So.3d 98 (Ala.Crim.App.2013) (“Luong I ”). We also held that the circuit court erred in denying Luong's motion for funds to investigate mitigating evidence and in admitting a videotaped reenactment of the murders.